Orient Express has been a part of several vacation planning and bucket lists for various reasons. Some dream of making it to the three new luxurious grand suites or a chance to travel back in time. Even superstars like Tom Cruise couldn’t stay away from its charm and hopped onto the roof of the Orient Express train to pull off dizzying stunts for Mission Impossible 7. The same opulent luxury sleeper is tapping our undying love for travel love with unmissable, striking lounge trunks, designed in collaboration with legendary Parisian trunk manufacturer Au Départ. Up until now, only Louis Vuitton had made a mark for its good old-fashioned trunks that housed it all from surgical instruments to an entire hair salon.
Giving tough competition is Au Départ’s stylish Italian-made lounge-trunk outfitted with a vinyl turntable and Bang & Olufsen speaker, two bottles of Hennessy Paradis cognac and glasses, three custom votive-sized Trudon candles, and a selection of beautiful coffee table books recounting Orient Express’s storied history. The brand has effortlessly captured the best elements of train travel in the Au Départ lounge trunk, like music, reading, and sipping cognac by candlelight. Each lounge trunk is numbered and engraved with the name of the Au Départ artisan who was integral to its production.
It is a subtle yet meaningful way of displaying the savoir-faire of world-class artisans coupled with the pleasures of train travel. The lavish trunks sport an exterior flanked with Au Départ monogram, a three-dimensional parallelepiped inspired by the floors of Pompeii. To emulate the grandness of the Orient Express, these trunks also sport Orient Express’s signature color- midnight blue in durable Italian calf leather. The Au Départ Lounge-Trunk will be available in only ten limited editions for nearly $136,200.
