The Orient Express is returning to Paris in anticipation of the luxury train line’s 2027 revival.
To mark the 100th anniversary of art deco, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs is hosting three replicas of the legendary line, which new owners Accor and LVMH plan to reestablish as a working railway. The original Orient advertised an 82-hour journey “from Paris to Constantinople” amidst Cordovan leather chairs and smoking libraries — though one writer remarked it was difficult to “drink a glass of wine without spilling it on your own shirt.”
The new Orient will strive for the same “rare and exceptional” feeling, the redesign’s architect told Le Monde: “Would Agatha Christie have used a commuter train as the setting for one of her novels?”