I Previewed the Makeover of the Orient Express — These Are the 5 Design Tricks I'm Taking to Make Small Rooms Feel "Clever, Refined, and Elegant"

As a fervent supporter of today's railway renaissance, it is memorable to talk to Maxime d'Angeac, the artistic director of luxury travel group Orient Express and the mastermind behind the soon-to-debut, thoroughly restored 1883 train of the same name. By 2027, when its lavish vintage carriages are expected to hit the tracks once again, he will have made it possible for travelers to turn their dream of cruising aboard the famed Orient Express, journeying from Europe's heart to the East, into a reality, 134 years after its inaugural journey.

A behind-the-scenes look at the luxury train ride's ambitious project, which is operated by Accor, is a rare thing in itself. But getting one within the immersive setup of 1925-2025. Cent ans d’Art déco — an exhibition organized for the centennial of the ever-influential Art Deco movement at Paris's Musée des Arts Décoratifs — instantly elevates our chat, particularly as it takes place inside a life-size sample of a reborn Orient Express sleeper.

When we meet in the French capital at the start of winter, the museum is still not open to the public. It's only 9 in the morning, and yet d'Angeac, a trained architect with a love of the neoclassical silhouettes of Palladian style and the Italian Renaissance, looks ready for a classy night out. Sporting a night-blue tailored suit jacket over a dark, crew-neck T-shirt and an endearing smile, he pulls an installation panel toward us to create a shortcut, and et voilà — we're in the show's beating heart.

Inside the Orient Express Rebirth — A 1883 Legend, Back on Track

Behind it, a plethora of textile, furniture, and tableware designs, presented alongside scale models of its old and freshly refurbished wagons on the first floor, retrace the story of the Orient Express — how the Georges Nagelmackers-engineered marvel of craftsmanship departing from Paris for Giurgiu in Romania via Munich and Vienna beginning in 1883, and heading all the way to Constantinople by 1889, became the earliest, most evocative embodiment of "slow travel and luxury".

"Everything you see in this room was selected by the Musée des Arts Décoratifs to capture the parallelism between 1925 and 2025," d'Angeac, who was invited to share his vision for the future Orient Express train in a dedicated exhibition wing also reuniting archival photographs, tickets, and luggage tags, as well as film footage shedding light on its painstaking manufacturing, tells me while showing me around. An ode to the golden age of rail travel, the display makes the legacy of Art Deco manifest across the decades.

"When we talk about this specific interior design style, we talk about symmetry, bold patterns, and sharp lines," the creative director explains. Out of all the vintage pieces on view on this level of the MAD, nothing sums up the dynamic essence of this genre better than Suzanne Lalique-Haviland's checkered velvet seats for the 1920s Orient Express carriages. "These were made by a French company called Manufacture royale Bonvallet, which is still active," d'Angeac says, pointing at a series of colorful fabric cuts placed inside a glass cabinet.

The revised 2022 textile designs that will feature in the anticipated train, produced by the same atelier, are also on display: "we focused on the square on the outside of the motif rather than that on the inside, but otherwise, they are essentially the same," the artistic force behind the Orient Express group rebrand explains. Aboard the 2027-launching train, yesterday blends in with today.

5 Design Tricks to Make Small Rooms Feel "Clever, Refined, and Elegant" — Stolen from the Orient Express Revamp

Taste, meanwhile, is declined to the highest standards in nothing but a few square meters per cabin, heralding a new, artisan-led chapter in 'capsule luxury'.

My first question for d'Angeac, then, comes rather spontaneously as, done with the tour of the 1925-2025. Cent ans d’Art déco exhibit, we take a seat aboard the mock-up sleeping compartment that serves as its centerpiece. The question being: what can one do to ensure even the smallest of rooms still feel just as functional, detailed, and premium as their more generously sized counterparts?

An exercise in balancing form and performance, conceived with timeless excellence at its core, the revived Orient Express interiors hold the answers to this — and more.

1. Pick Quality Over Quantity: "Value Isn't About The Number of Things You Style in a Space, But About their Real Worth"

For d'Angeac, who also designed the imposing Orient Express Olympian, a 220-meter sailing yacht scheduled for debut next year, maximizing space is a task that starts with materials. Or even better, with their creation.

To him, "value isn't about the number of things you style in a space, but about their real worth," the inherent worth, in this case, lying in the creative and manual labor that went into them. "You don't have to pay a lot for really rich, luxurious materials: you have to produce them," says the Orient Express artistic director. And so they did.

Instead of marquetry, a brand staple in the Orient Express portfolio and the wider luxury train industry, d'Angeac opted for a twist: "wood embroidery". The bedrooms, all polished rosewood, relief fabric wall coverings, brass detailing, and reflective accents, include abstract decorations "that took craftspeople nearly 300 hours to complete," he explains. Because when room is scarce, all it takes you is one standout touch to achieve that sense of researched charm.

2. Learn From Craftsmanship Rather Than Just History: "I'm Not Nostalgic, But I Love How People Used to Do Things Before"

The storied heritage and myth surrounding the Orient Express inevitably were key influences for d'Angeac's train redesign. But when striving to create a space that, despite the constraints, feels both "clever, refined, and elegant," the artistic director doesn't think history alone is ever enough.

"I'm not working in a nostalgic way, but I like the way artisans, as well as interior designers and architects, worked before," he says of his approach. Building on the finest examples of savoir-faire from the past is one thing; bringing on board people who, drawing from that along with the latest technologies, "can invent brand new finishes and material alternatives is another one," says d'Angeac.

The future Orient Express revives 17 forgotten carriages of the original 1920s Nostalgie-Istanbul-Orient-Express, 13 of which were discovered a few years ago on a railway siding in Małaszewicze, Poland, not far from the Belarus border. Despite their state of abandonment, these were surprisingly well-preserved, decorated with period Morrison and Nelson marquetry and Lalique panels.

Acquired by Accor in 2018, the carriages now exude new life, echoing the Orient Express legacy while raising the bar for the next chapter in hospitality design.

"All you see here was drawn up by hand, just like they did for the 1920s train," explains its artistic director. With his index finger, he traces the constellations of stars spreading as curling waves across the wagons' midnight blue carpets. Woven by Manufacture de Tapis de Bourgogne, "these didn't exist before we came up with them". It's proof that modestly sized rooms, too, deserve the greatest degree of invention.

3. Don't Just Run With What You've Got, Optimize It: "No Space Can Be Lost"

Stepping inside the meticulously reimagined Orient Express cabins makes you realize just how important it is to optimize every inch you've got lying before you. Really, they are much tinier than my own bedroom. Still, their luminous scheme, flawlessly opulent details, and ingenious tricks — take, for example, the decorative convex mirrors positioned at the rear of the suites, which, projecting their interiors back at you in all their majesty, almost enlarge them — make you feel like you could totally live here.

"Because on a train, your eyes, fingers, and toes are really close to everything, you cannot afford any mistakes," d'Angeac explains. This, of course, also counts for the most constrained corners in your home. "You need to plan the space from A to Z to ensure you don't lose a single millimeter," he claims. Needless to say, this is a mindset that's most tangible in the sleeping compartments of the Orient Express.

To maximize their volumes, "I decided to make a big living room, or lounge, and a bedroom together," d'Angeac recounts. In just two and a half minutes, the burgundy velvet couches that come with every Orient Express suite setup can be transformed into one or two beds, depending on travelers' requests. "Imagine you're going for dinner," the artistic director says. "By the time you come back, you're in your bedroom. Before leaving, you can enjoy a cocktail sitting on the sofa, or staring out of the window."

The same smooth transition continues in the hidden-away bathroom of the cabin, equipped with a cylindrical shower that disappears with one swift movement. "If you're taking a shower, there is privacy," d'Angeac demonstrates, pulling the curved, sliding door so the cubicle goes from see-through glass to matte bordeaux. "If you aren't, there is continuity for the eye to reach the wood of the restroom door, with plenty of reflections that expand the space and bring in perspective."

The Orient Express train sleepers might be compact in size, but to ensure discerning globetrotters could have the experience of a lifetime, adequate storage was a must. "Trust me: there's no bathroom like this one on any other train," laughs d'Angeac. He reveals shelves built directly into the red and white marble and chrome-clad sink and vanity unit. "No space can be lost here," the artistic director adds. "In this suite alone, you have a wardrobe, a huge dressing room, some place for your luggage, a safe, a hanger, and three drawers."

Could 'Matryoshka doll'-style interiors, with multiple pockets of room stacked up into one, be the way forward for homes that look tidy, smart, and beautifully functional?

4. Brave to Be Bold — But Mind Overstimulation: "If Design Is Too Strong, It Can Be Tiring"

Another thing to keep in mind when working on small rooms is ensuring that, while characterful and unexpected, your decor doesn't spill into overstimulation. The use of dark wood like ebony and mahogany, for example, has always been a non-negotiable for trains like the Orient Express. "But if you only do that," explains d'Angeac, "you end up with a 'cigar box,'" he smiles.

To spice things up, you have to weave in multiple elements, albeit carefully. "You need a strong design that doesn't feel obvious, and doesn't feel too much, either," he explains. "Because if someone is spending three days inside these cabins, you don't want the interiors to feel tiring."

Vibrant reds and blues are evergreen classics, but they can also be heavy on the eyes. To avoid that, d'Angeac experimented with two plans — vertical and horizontal — incorporating different motifs, like the kaleidoscopic carpet in the sour green-tinted Bar Car, or the leaf-inspired Fougere pattern of its walls, and balancing them off with more linear, height-developing elements in glass and mother-of-pearl. "A simple, white marble bathroom would have felt obvious," the creative director explains. "So, we enriched it with stripes of color and inox steel that make it shine."

5. Design for All the Senses, Not Just Sight: "True Exclusivity Knows No Mistakes"

Sight isn't the only sense that can be captivated — or overloaded — by design. And that's why d'Angeac's final tip for 'capsule' spaces that feel deluxe wants us to consider everything that makes a room "exclusive". Consider, for example, the thickness of the walls. On the reborn Orient Express, "you have two decorative walls, one in the corridor and one in the bedrooms. Between them is a middle panel regulating the solidity of the interior, temperature, sound, and fire hazards," d'Angeac recounts.

"For a trip to be as luxurious as the Orient Express train aims to be, you need the perfect width, as no one wants to hear someone coughing on the other side of the cabin," he explains. Train walls, specifically, "need to be able to move a lot without ever bending, and to react well to all the vibrations that come with cruising."

Finally, comes lightning: something the Dining Car of the new Orient Express, bathing in a cinematic golden glow, does masterfully. This "can't be too white or too yellow, and has to be as good at daytime as it is at night," says d'Angeac. The most Art Deco of all Orient Express wagons, this theatrical restaurant has you travel back in time, with arched ceilings, table lamps inspired by visionary René Prou's original designs for the 1920s train's Pullman carriages, and equally stunning, minimalist silver serveware.

Dotted in retro Napa tables and armchairs arranged in a checkerboard-like layout, it includes a private dining room that restores the period marquetry panels from the rail legend to their former glory: one final proof of how, in d'Angeac's revamp, "the historical Orient Express is still at the center of everything".

Keep up to date with the Orient Express relaunch and book your next slow travel journey.

The return of the legendary Orient Express train comes at a time when the popularity of slow travel, which values the itinerary and the experience of travel itself over the number of destinations one can tick off their list, is at an all-time high. So if you've enjoyed a glance at what gently cruising through Europe might feel like aboard this Art Deco icon, chances are you might like to learn more about similarly minded addresses that, while imbued with the same tranquil charm, keep holidaying on the ground. From the coolest staycations and farm stays in the UK to the most luxurious spas to unwind around the world.