0:00:05 > 0:00:08Art Deco turned travel into an art form.
0:00:08 > 0:00:13For a lucky few in the 1920s and '30s, the train became something luxurious and wonderful
0:00:13 > 0:00:19and the journey as much a part of the experience as the destination.
0:00:22 > 0:00:24That's really lovely.
0:00:24 > 0:00:28The height of this luxury was to be found on board the Orient Express.
0:00:30 > 0:00:33- Hello there. - Good morning, sir.- Thanks.
0:00:35 > 0:00:38In the 1920s and '30s, international travel
0:00:38 > 0:00:40was a stylish and elegant affair.
0:00:40 > 0:00:42For those that could afford it.
0:00:42 > 0:00:45I'm going to fulfil the dream of a lifetime and travel on this,
0:00:45 > 0:00:50the world-famous Orient Express, all the way to Venice. I can't wait.
0:01:04 > 0:01:07I haven't seen one of those since I was a kid.
0:01:07 > 0:01:13And what we used to do is stand here, and the train would jiggle about, and you could actually
0:01:13 > 0:01:18see the tracks underneath. And it was all part of the scary excitement of train travel.
0:01:18 > 0:01:19Ooh! I'll get out of your way.
0:01:19 > 0:01:21Sorry.
0:01:24 > 0:01:28And here, look, you can see forwards. It's fantastic.
0:01:31 > 0:01:34It's the Battersea Dogs Home.
0:01:37 > 0:01:39It is! It is the Battersea Dogs Home!
0:01:41 > 0:01:47The Orient Express took a 19th-century idea, the train, and re-invented it into a luxurious
0:01:47 > 0:01:53trans-European hotel on wheels, patronised by royalty, diplomats
0:01:53 > 0:01:55and wealthy business travellers.
0:01:59 > 0:02:05In the 1930s, the Orient Express and other luxury trains connected Europe's capitals.
0:02:05 > 0:02:09The London to Paris boat train was known as the Golden Arrow.
0:02:11 > 0:02:13When I was a little boy,
0:02:13 > 0:02:19I was brought up in Bickley, briefly, and my dad used to take me out in the pram and hold me up
0:02:19 > 0:02:24over a bridge, not to kill me but so I could see the Golden Arrow come whizzing past.
0:02:24 > 0:02:29And I remember - I was only very, very small - the square end
0:02:29 > 0:02:35of the train with a big golden arrow across the front and this whoosh of steam come up over the bridge.
0:02:35 > 0:02:39And every time I see The Lavender Hill Mob,
0:02:39 > 0:02:43I think of that bridge and the Golden Arrow.
0:02:46 > 0:02:48I'm a bit overwhelmed.
0:02:48 > 0:02:51This carriage is just absolutely sumptuous.
0:02:51 > 0:02:55And the thing about the Orient Express was it was a brand.
0:02:55 > 0:02:57It's a very old train. The train started
0:02:57 > 0:03:03in the early 1880s, and it was a number of routes that went across Europe, ultimately to Istanbul.
0:03:03 > 0:03:08But because of politics and other things, it went by different routes over different times.
0:03:08 > 0:03:12And the English end of the Orient Express really wasn't the Orient Express.
0:03:12 > 0:03:14That began in France.
0:03:14 > 0:03:15But it connected.
0:03:20 > 0:03:23I'm so used to the commuter train
0:03:23 > 0:03:26and everyone hating it and people being grumpy.
0:03:26 > 0:03:32It's smooth, it's comfortable, there's no traffic, there's no noise.
0:03:32 > 0:03:36And, erm, yeah, I could get used to this.
0:03:38 > 0:03:41When the tea cools down.
0:03:45 > 0:03:49And looking around the carriage, I mean, you've got a lot of time to take in
0:03:49 > 0:03:52all the details - the details are crucial.
0:03:52 > 0:03:58And one I really love more than all the others is this little lit-up seat number here, number 12.
0:03:59 > 0:04:06And up here, the emergency chain has a wonderful thing above it which says "Penalty for improper use £50."
0:04:06 > 0:04:12But the pounds on the 50 is just a lovely, lovely bit of typography.
0:04:12 > 0:04:16The original Orient Express ceased in 1977.
0:04:16 > 0:04:20But this was not the end of the line for this illustrious marque. Hello!
0:04:20 > 0:04:24- Hello.- Hello. - On board today is the man who bought and restored the train.
0:04:24 > 0:04:28- May I join you? - Yes, please do.- Thank you very much.
0:04:28 > 0:04:31So, James, where did the idea come from to relaunch the service?
0:04:31 > 0:04:37In 1977, there was such a tremendous interest in the fact that
0:04:37 > 0:04:40the train was discontinued
0:04:40 > 0:04:47that I thought it might be worthwhile to restore the old train
0:04:47 > 0:04:52to its glory of the 1920s and 1930s
0:04:52 > 0:04:55and put it back into service.
0:04:55 > 0:04:59I bought the first two carriages of the continental train
0:04:59 > 0:05:03in an auction in Monte Carlo...
0:05:03 > 0:05:11- Wow.- ..in October of 1977, and they were the carriages used in the film
0:05:11 > 0:05:15Murder On The Orient Express, which appeared a couple of years earlier.
0:05:15 > 0:05:19And so, in a fit of madness,
0:05:19 > 0:05:25I bought these two carriages. But that was just he beginning, of course. Ultimately, we had to acquire
0:05:25 > 0:05:30- 25 of the continental carriages. - You bought 25 carriages?
0:05:30 > 0:05:3525, which we located all over Europe, particularly in Spain and Portugal.
0:05:35 > 0:05:40So, Shirley, what did you think when your husband bought a train?
0:05:40 > 0:05:43Well, I thought he was out of his mind, quite definitely.
0:05:43 > 0:05:45But then, after a bit,
0:05:45 > 0:05:48you begin to see
0:05:48 > 0:05:52the charm of what were really battered, beat-up carriages
0:05:52 > 0:05:57with no lovely interiors but some of the marquetry left and so on.
0:05:57 > 0:06:02So it got quite exciting seeing them stripped down and started again.
0:06:02 > 0:06:09And the son of the man who'd done the marquetry repaired it.
0:06:09 > 0:06:13- And how did you find him? - Oh, we found him in Chelmsford.
0:06:13 > 0:06:19And I'm not quite sure how we did find him, but we went to see his work, and, I mean, it was superb.
0:06:19 > 0:06:21And he got very excited about it.
0:06:21 > 0:06:28And these were restored using original veneers from the 1930s,
0:06:28 > 0:06:31which have laid in a warehouse, all rolled up.
0:06:31 > 0:06:33And they're very beautiful.
0:06:33 > 0:06:38When did you decide that you were going to take charge of the interior restoration?
0:06:38 > 0:06:45Oh, no, I didn't take charge of it, but I got very interested in it and I wrote a book about it.
0:06:45 > 0:06:49And, you know, I researched the history of each of the carriages.
0:06:49 > 0:06:53Why do you think these trains have become synonymous with Art Deco?
0:06:53 > 0:06:58- Well, a number of the carriages were from the Brighton Belle...- Yeah.
0:06:58 > 0:07:02..which was pure, classic Art Deco.
0:07:02 > 0:07:06- Mm-hm.- I mean, most of the carriages are Art Deco.
0:07:06 > 0:07:10You know, when we first got on the train, I didn't really like
0:07:10 > 0:07:15Art Deco very much but have become very excited by it since.
0:07:15 > 0:07:20Somehow, I always think, it's appropriate to transport, because most people don't have
0:07:20 > 0:07:25an Art Deco house and so it's a style that is linked to things like ships
0:07:25 > 0:07:32and trains and department stores and cinemas, kind of luxury but semi-public experiences, you know?
0:07:32 > 0:07:34Yes, I suppose that's true, yes.
0:07:36 > 0:07:40The Sherwoods even commissioned one of the last surviving designers of
0:07:40 > 0:07:43the Art Deco era to create the posters for the relaunch.
0:07:55 > 0:08:00There was a time when the carriages of the London to Paris service were loaded onto a ferry.
0:08:00 > 0:08:02But for us, it's the tunnel.
0:08:07 > 0:08:12At Calais, a gleaming rake of restored carriages a quarter of a mile long awaits us.
0:08:13 > 0:08:15Thank you very much.
0:08:17 > 0:08:22Agatha Christie wrote, "All my life I'd wanted to go on the Orient Express."
0:08:22 > 0:08:26"When I travelled to France or Spain or Italy, the Orient Express had
0:08:26 > 0:08:30"often been standing at Calais and I'd longed to climb up into it.
0:08:30 > 0:08:34"Simplon Orient Express. Milan, Belgrade, Istanbul."
0:08:34 > 0:08:38- Can I have your name or cabin number? - Yeah, my name's David Heathcote.
0:08:38 > 0:08:41- Brilliant. Cabin five.- Right.
0:08:46 > 0:08:49Ah, I see.
0:08:49 > 0:08:54Wow! Do you know, this is a perfect little room.
0:08:54 > 0:08:59Masses of shiny wood and brass and marquetry, tiny little fan.
0:08:59 > 0:09:03And it's a bit like being on an old ship.
0:09:03 > 0:09:10Everything is tiny and perfect and in its place and there's lots of little cubbyholes I can explore.
0:09:10 > 0:09:13Switches, lights
0:09:13 > 0:09:16and reflective surfaces generally.
0:09:19 > 0:09:21Look, this is the marquetry. This is so Deco.
0:09:21 > 0:09:25I think this is by Rene Proux.
0:09:25 > 0:09:31Even the octagonal shape just really shouts out Deco. And these flowers.
0:09:31 > 0:09:33Very French. Not the American Deco at all.
0:09:33 > 0:09:38They're colourful, they're bright, and it just makes everything a bit more domestic,
0:09:38 > 0:09:41almost like this lampshade, which is improbably pink.
0:09:41 > 0:09:47Even the upholstery on these seats is
0:09:47 > 0:09:49a really lovely jazzy pattern.
0:09:49 > 0:09:51These big flowers again, very Deco.
0:09:51 > 0:09:54Somewhere, under all these cushions,
0:09:54 > 0:09:56is a bed. I have no idea where.
0:09:56 > 0:09:58TANNOY BEEPS
0:09:58 > 0:10:05'Ladies and gentlemen, good evening and on behalf of the crew welcome aboard the Orient Express.
0:10:05 > 0:10:09'The continental time is five past five.'
0:10:09 > 0:10:15The train leaves Calais in the late afternoon and we arrive in Venice this time tomorrow.
0:10:15 > 0:10:21In 1930, the journey from Paris to Constantinople took 57 hours,
0:10:21 > 0:10:26which is probably long enough, as the train has never had bath or shower facilities on board.
0:10:26 > 0:10:30But hot water is still supplied from coal-fired boilers located in each coach.
0:10:34 > 0:10:39I'm reading a Cook's handbook for Egypt and the Sudan.
0:10:39 > 0:10:43It is interesting, Cook's handbook recommends that you can
0:10:43 > 0:10:47catch a train down to Venice and then go on to Egypt.
0:10:47 > 0:10:54This edition is for 1925 and it includes, for the first time,
0:10:54 > 0:11:02a supplement about the discoveries in Egypt in 1922, when Howard Carter discovered the tomb of Tutankhamun.
0:11:02 > 0:11:07Egyptomania was really a very important part of Art Deco.
0:11:07 > 0:11:13Egyptomania was all the rage. The imaginations of Art-Deco designers were fired
0:11:13 > 0:11:16by the gilded and lacquered artefacts that Carter unearthed.
0:11:16 > 0:11:21While the Orient Express allowed the well-heeled to travel and experience
0:11:21 > 0:11:25the wonder of these ancient civilisations for themselves.
0:11:25 > 0:11:33Personal grooming. I think I need a haircut, perhaps some hair oil, to get that authentic look.
0:11:41 > 0:11:43HE LAUGHS
0:11:51 > 0:11:53I am an artiste!
0:11:53 > 0:11:54HE LAUGHS
0:11:54 > 0:11:57- Have a seat.- Thank you very much.
0:12:09 > 0:12:11That is really lovely.
0:12:16 > 0:12:21You know, it's quite hard to define Art Deco because it has many styles,
0:12:21 > 0:12:25but the thing it really is an attempt to make a modern luxury.
0:12:25 > 0:12:29Sitting here in this dining room,
0:12:29 > 0:12:32you really get a sense of what Art Deco is properly about.
0:12:32 > 0:12:35It's an escapist movement.
0:12:35 > 0:12:40It's something that is trying to get away from the immediate past of World War One.
0:12:40 > 0:12:45The years after World War One in France were called the crazy years, because everybody in almost
0:12:45 > 0:12:51every way, was trying to throw the past behind them and invent something new.
0:12:51 > 0:12:55So it was a mood, and the great thing about
0:12:55 > 0:12:58a mood is you can apply it anything, from a salt cellar to a motor car.
0:13:06 > 0:13:12Paris is the birthplace of Art Deco. The International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Art
0:13:12 > 0:13:18held in 1925, exhibited the work of the world's most opulent designers and craftsmen.
0:13:26 > 0:13:28# There may be trouble ahead
0:13:28 > 0:13:29# Do, da, do-do, do... #
0:13:29 > 0:13:36As you walk through this train, every surface is decorated in some way or other.
0:13:36 > 0:13:40That is a really essential part of Art Deco.
0:13:40 > 0:13:46Everything, whether necessary or unnecessary, has some kind of decorativeness all over it.
0:13:46 > 0:13:49It is flush and shiny. There are no lumps or bumps or carving.
0:13:49 > 0:13:53It's just a lush material under a deep, glossy coat of varnish.
0:13:53 > 0:13:58I don't even know what this is. It's like jazz vegetation,
0:13:58 > 0:14:00but it's lovely!
0:14:13 > 0:14:21Looking through this architectural review of the Paris Exhibition of 1925, it is obvious
0:14:21 > 0:14:23the British were spitting with envy.
0:14:23 > 0:14:29Beside every lush photograph there's a bitter and long text about
0:14:29 > 0:14:36how un-modern, how ill-considered, how unfinished and how unprincipled French modernism is.
0:14:36 > 0:14:38That's what you would expect from
0:14:38 > 0:14:43an architectural magazine, where they are more interested in the modernism of Le Corbusier.
0:14:43 > 0:14:48But Vogue was interesting, because Vogue said that, "The Paris exhibition is like a city
0:14:48 > 0:14:54"in a dream and the sort of dream that would give the psychoanalysts a run for their money."
0:14:54 > 0:15:00Which is, you know, trendy and vague, but it gets the sense of drama,
0:15:00 > 0:15:02of glamour, of complication,
0:15:02 > 0:15:07and of something underlyingly erotic and passionate about Art Deco.
0:15:17 > 0:15:22It's the end of a long day and my room has turned into a bedroom, just like on a liner.
0:15:22 > 0:15:26And it's been a long day and a very interesting day.
0:15:26 > 0:15:33The whole train is gorgeous, it's like this huge horizontal hotel, full of drama, well-dressed people
0:15:33 > 0:15:40marching up and down, people having fun. It's like the audience of an opera but no opera.
0:15:40 > 0:15:43I'm looking forward to tomorrow when I can throw up this
0:15:43 > 0:15:46blind early in the morning and look at Switzerland.
0:15:46 > 0:15:48And it's strange, you go to bed in France, you wake up
0:15:48 > 0:15:52in a completely different other place with a completely other view.
0:15:52 > 0:15:55Tomorrow, the day should be beautiful, through the Alps
0:15:55 > 0:15:58and down to Venice, which I cannot wait to see.
0:16:49 > 0:16:53It's lucky they've got this piano here to hold me up.
0:16:54 > 0:16:58The thing about the train in the morning is it's the quietest it's been.
0:16:58 > 0:17:01It's almost like you've got it all to yourself.
0:17:08 > 0:17:14It's so peaceful. Actually, I can have a look at the decor.
0:17:14 > 0:17:15It's unusual.
0:17:17 > 0:17:22It looks quite old fashioned, but all the carriages have got the dates on. This one's actually 1931.
0:17:22 > 0:17:26But these tinted mirrors, which are very '30s,
0:17:26 > 0:17:30the actual detail is rococo revival,
0:17:30 > 0:17:33which came really before Art Deco.
0:17:35 > 0:17:38But the general shininess, and these low lamps and these
0:17:38 > 0:17:43gentle light effects, are also very much part of the Deco scheme.
0:17:43 > 0:17:48Pools of light reflected on to people, I think the idea is to flatter everybody.
0:17:50 > 0:17:53Even in the morning.
0:18:11 > 0:18:17I've come into the dining room again to a closer look at these Lalique panels.
0:18:17 > 0:18:22Lalique took part in the 1925 Art Deco exhibition in Paris, and this glassware is really
0:18:22 > 0:18:27synonymous with Art Deco all over the world because it was exported all over the world.
0:18:27 > 0:18:32And in the restaurant car here, this set of panels are
0:18:32 > 0:18:35particularly appropriate because it's a bacchanalian revel.
0:18:35 > 0:18:40You've got these grapes, you've got these nymphs dancing to a tune played by Pan.
0:18:40 > 0:18:44And of course, this link with mythology and with primitivism
0:18:44 > 0:18:47and with the savage life is all part of what Art Deco's about.
0:18:47 > 0:18:50And of course, in a restaurant, these figures
0:18:50 > 0:18:57imply to the characters in the restaurant that they're part of this great, luxurious, primitive life.
0:18:59 > 0:19:05DH Lawrence in Lady Chatterley's Lover described the train as having an atmosphere of vulgar depravity.
0:19:05 > 0:19:10But there were many others who loved its debauched grandeur.
0:19:10 > 0:19:14One of the things about the Orient Express was that it was a kind of fashion catwalk.
0:19:14 > 0:19:18All the public areas really are places to see and be seen.
0:19:18 > 0:19:22They're great social encounters with the great and the good of the day.
0:19:22 > 0:19:27And in the '30s and the late '20s, all the most fashionable people would have been on this train.
0:19:27 > 0:19:32But the arteries of fashion and style were magazines.
0:19:32 > 0:19:37New printing processes that allowed very detailed photographs to be put in magazines meant that
0:19:37 > 0:19:41everybody all over the world could keep up with the fashion of the day.
0:19:41 > 0:19:46So Art Deco spread very fast through the medium of the magazine,
0:19:46 > 0:19:51from Thailand to Tiger Bay, as they say, from France to America.
0:19:51 > 0:19:57And of course, there were new stars in these magazines, real, modern celebrities like Anna May Wong, here
0:19:57 > 0:20:02in a suitably Deco pose photographed by Cecil Beaton.
0:20:02 > 0:20:05The great thing about Deco was it was a complete style.
0:20:05 > 0:20:10From the magazines to the photographs to the cutlery to the fashion to the carriages,
0:20:10 > 0:20:17it all had the same luxurious but futuristic and very, very cosmopolitan vibe.
0:20:26 > 0:20:32Getting on the train at Innsbruck is Bevis Hillier, the original expert on Art Deco.
0:20:32 > 0:20:37- You must be Bevis. - Ah, David, very good to meet you. - Good to meet you. Shall we get on?
0:20:44 > 0:20:47Before you wrote your book, how widely understood
0:20:47 > 0:20:50amongst the general public was the term Art Deco?
0:20:50 > 0:20:54Well, in the period itself, I mean the '20s and '30s,
0:20:54 > 0:20:57the phrase Art Deco was never used.
0:20:57 > 0:20:59It only came in much, much later.
0:20:59 > 0:21:06In the period, they used the phrases Jazz Modern and Moderne, with an "e" on the end.
0:21:06 > 0:21:12- The phrase Art Deco, I think, was first used in 1966, in an article in the Times.- So late?
0:21:12 > 0:21:18So late. I picked up on it because I was already taking an interest in what I thought of as the '30s.
0:21:18 > 0:21:23And a young antique dealer in Kensington Church Street London,
0:21:23 > 0:21:28called John Jess, said to me with a kind of muffled snigger, "Do you know what they're calling that stuff?
0:21:28 > 0:21:30"Art Deco."
0:21:30 > 0:21:35And a lightbulb went on above my head and I thought, "Ah, that's the right title for my book."
0:21:35 > 0:21:40Deco seems to have an interest in the primitive and the exotic and almost the savage.
0:21:40 > 0:21:43Where do you think that comes from?
0:21:43 > 0:21:48Well, in essence, Art Deco is to me domesticated Cubism.
0:21:48 > 0:21:54And if you think about Cubism, it's primarily from Picasso and Braque.
0:21:54 > 0:21:57And they, who were they influenced by?
0:21:57 > 0:22:01Primarily by what was then thought of, in the early years of the century
0:22:01 > 0:22:05and the '20s, as savage or primitive art of Africa.
0:22:05 > 0:22:11Nowadays, we take a much more enlightened view - Benin bronzes, nothing could be more sophisticated.
0:22:11 > 0:22:16No, exactly. Do you think there any national characteristics to different styles of Art Deco?
0:22:16 > 0:22:21Oh, very much so. I think you could say the most sophisticated, the best Art Deco was French.
0:22:21 > 0:22:27After all, that's where it began, with designers like Emil Jacques Ruhlmann in furniture,
0:22:27 > 0:22:29and Jean Puiforcat in silver.
0:22:29 > 0:22:32But the most extreme and splendid Art Deco was in America.
0:22:32 > 0:22:38America was so powerful and rich in the 1920s before the crash of 1929.
0:22:38 > 0:22:42So in New York, you have the Empire State Building,
0:22:42 > 0:22:47the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, the Channing Building, the Chrysler Building and so on.
0:22:47 > 0:22:53And do you think Art Deco was some kind of collective reaction to the First World War?
0:22:53 > 0:22:57Again, very much so. People had been through the most terrible time.
0:22:57 > 0:23:01Even worse than the Second World War, which I can just remember.
0:23:01 > 0:23:09Many had lost people in their family, loved ones, there had been rationing, there had been privations.
0:23:09 > 0:23:15Everyone in the 1920s wanted a respite from this and they wanted
0:23:15 > 0:23:19a bit of fizz and bubble and to let off steam. And they did.
0:23:19 > 0:23:22What do you think is the legacy of Art Deco?
0:23:22 > 0:23:30Well, in my little book about Deco of 1968, I described it as the last of the total styles.
0:23:30 > 0:23:32And I think that still stands.
0:23:32 > 0:23:36Of course, in the 1950s you got that style called contemporary,
0:23:36 > 0:23:41with those funny legs on tables with cocktail cherry bobbles on the end,
0:23:41 > 0:23:45but that did not affect everything in the way that Art Deco did.
0:23:45 > 0:23:50Art Deco not only affected the top range of things, hotels
0:23:50 > 0:23:57and liners, but also it affected ladies' handbags, lampposts, letterboxes, powder compacts.
0:23:57 > 0:23:59It was the last of the total styles.
0:23:59 > 0:24:02And the important thing is the designers took into account
0:24:02 > 0:24:06the machine and mass-production, perhaps for the first time.
0:24:06 > 0:24:10They didn't just want their objects to be for the rich,
0:24:10 > 0:24:13they wanted them to the mass produced for the less rich.
0:24:19 > 0:24:25In 1971, Bevis curated the largest exhibition of Art Deco ever held.
0:24:25 > 0:24:31It took place in Minneapolis and gathered thousands of Deco objects together for the first time.
0:24:31 > 0:24:33I'm keen to learn more over lunch.
0:24:36 > 0:24:41Minneapolis was able to offer a more or less unlimited budget,
0:24:41 > 0:24:45and so I was able to order things from Paris, New York and all around.
0:24:45 > 0:24:49I went to New York in 1970 to recruit exhibits and I met
0:24:49 > 0:24:54two of the great collectors, Barbra Streisand and Andy Warhol.
0:24:54 > 0:24:57And how many objects did he lend you?
0:24:57 > 0:25:00I'm not sure how many it was, but quite a load.
0:25:00 > 0:25:05I think a lot of people are fascinated by the period before their birth.
0:25:05 > 0:25:10And what you have to understand is that for my generation, our parents
0:25:10 > 0:25:14represented the '20s and '30s as a golden age.
0:25:14 > 0:25:18And, furthermore, the relics of the '30s were all around me in my infancy.
0:25:18 > 0:25:22I grew up in Redhill, Surrey, and there was a place called
0:25:22 > 0:25:26Earlswood Lakes near Redhill, which was a sort of pleasure ground.
0:25:26 > 0:25:32You could swim there or you could go boating, "Come in, number four, your time is up" sort of thing.
0:25:32 > 0:25:35And next to the boating lake there was this large shed,
0:25:35 > 0:25:39you could have tea there or coffee, but there were pinball machines.
0:25:39 > 0:25:44And they were in this marvellous zigzag, jazzy, Art Deco style.
0:25:44 > 0:25:51And I believe it was those pinball machines when I was about five that first turned me on to Art Deco.
0:25:51 > 0:25:57So really, the '60s generation, the Pop Art generation, also were this first post-war generation,
0:25:57 > 0:26:02so they would revive Deco, because that was the style of their parents.
0:26:02 > 0:26:07- That's right. Very much so. - So in the end, how important a style do you think Art Deco is?
0:26:07 > 0:26:11It was immensely important in that it was the first style that
0:26:11 > 0:26:16really tried to end the enmity between the fine arts and the applied arts.
0:26:16 > 0:26:23In Art Deco, a potter could be as important as a fine artist. It was a style for everyone.
0:26:35 > 0:26:38The Second World War put the brakes on this way of life.
0:26:38 > 0:26:45After 1945, the world had moved on and planes and cars made a luxury train seem old-fashioned.
0:26:55 > 0:27:00The thing that you really realise about Art Deco in these trains is that the carriages
0:27:00 > 0:27:07are an industrial product and all this marquetry and beautiful wood and shininess is just a veneer.
0:27:07 > 0:27:10And Deco gave a veneer of luxury and
0:27:10 > 0:27:13quality to something which was just a load of metal.
0:27:13 > 0:27:19And that's what it does for everything it touches, transforms it from the ordinary to the luxury.
0:27:21 > 0:27:23I wish it could do it for me.
0:27:54 > 0:27:56- Thank you.- Thank you very much.
0:27:59 > 0:28:01See you later.
0:28:01 > 0:28:04It's hot. Really hot.
0:28:04 > 0:28:07But I've had the journey of a lifetime, really.
0:28:07 > 0:28:12I've always wanted to be on this train and it's never unpleasant to arrive in Venice.
0:28:12 > 0:28:17Coming over that causeway, every time just makes you realise how beautiful it is.
0:28:17 > 0:28:19But I've got to get a beer.
0:28:20 > 0:28:23Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
0:28:23 > 0:28:27E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk