Baz Luhrmann – the maximalist director behind movies comparable to Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge! – has partnered with Catherine Martin (CM); his spouse and artistic accomplice, to design a brand new carriage for Belmond’s British Pullman practice. Think about a world the place A Midsummer Evening’s Dream meets The Nice Gatsby: a secret hideaway the place magical whimsy and Jazz Age glamour collide, and you will find your self someplace shut.
The carriage, titled ‘Celia’, transports friends right into a dreamlike world – an area for free-spirited minds to return collectively and journey in fashion.
(Picture credit score: Pia Riverola)
From engaged on his newest movie, Jehanne d’Arc, to the discharge of EPiC: Elvis Presley in Live performance (2025), and a fast go to to Monsieur’s – his little bar in New York – Luhrmann is a busy man. From his up to date Parisian house, the director takes a uncommon free second to talk with Wallpaper* (he’s on the town, accompanying Anna Wintour to Vogue Week) about his newest addition to the Belmond British Pullman and the inspiration behind Celia.
All aboard The British Pullman, with Baz Luhrmann
(Picture credit score: Hugh Stewart)
It’s uncommon to discover a life accomplice who additionally doubles as a inventive accomplice in crime. But for Luhrmann, his creative imaginative and prescient is shared along with his spouse, CM, with whom he’s fluent in a shared inventive dialogue: an invisible language that allows a profound stage of collaboration. This fashioned the inspiration for designing the British Pullman’s new carriage.
‘We work in a really conventional manner with my crappy sketches, scribbles, and concepts. CM turns it into brilliance. She simply has such a contact for making rooms magical, heat and loving,’ Luhrmann explains, gazing up via his rose-tinted glasses.
(Picture credit score: Hugh Stewart)
Together with his optimistic and (fairly actually) rosy outlook, it’s no marvel the director is at all times up for inventive adventures. But it’s a extra languid method to journey that Luhrmann significantly enjoys. ‘I like sluggish journey, particularly once I full a giant mission. After I completed Moulin Rouge! I went on the Trans-Siberian Railway. At first, it was horrifying as a result of again then, it was mainly a tin field and a babushka. I mentioned, “Look, the place’s the bathe?” as we had been pulling out of Beijing on our method to Lake Baikal in Siberia. She handed me a rubber hose and mentioned, “Rubber hose. You wash.”’
‘I’ll inform you that, as disturbing as that was, as soon as I mounted the air-con, stopped crying like a child, uncorked my giant bottle of purple Aussie wine and placed on this new machine known as the iPod… I performed a recording of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Nice Gatsby. I began consuming the wine, watching Siberia go by within the evening, getting good, heat and toasty. It had a tremendous transformative impact… I’ve to go along with sluggish journey to get my soul again.’
(Picture credit score: Yukiko Noritake)
For Luhrmann, these journeys maintain a particular place in his coronary heart: ‘Trains specifically have a manner of placing you in a dream-like state the place you overlook in regards to the realities round you on the earth.’
From his personal experiences, he started conceptualising the brand new carriage. A deep-dive into Laurence Olivier’s storied Seventies Pullman automotive, which he used to go between London and Brighton, offered additional inspiration. And from right here, the character of Celia was born.
‘Trains have a manner of placing you in a dream-like state the place you overlook in regards to the realities round you on the earth.’
Baz Luhrmann
In Luhrmann’s thoughts, Celia is a fictional actress starring in a manufacturing of A Midsummer Evening’s Dream. She has an American lover who is not shy about showering her with lavish presents.
‘As a shock, he creates probably the most inconceivably stunning eating automotive and bar, with hidden, enjoyable nooks,’ Luhrmann enthuses.
(Picture credit score: Yukiko Noritake)
Set inside an authentic 1932 Pullman carriage, Celia’s Shakespearean theatre is dropped at life. The inside is adorned with intricate marquetry impressed by the natural world present in A Midsummer Evening’s Dream. It additionally options its personal cocktail bar, lounge, eating and leisure space, accommodating as much as 12 friends.
However why the identify Celia? This can be a personal, candy but delicate story that Luhrmann is unable to share – besides to say that it’s an ode to somebody he and CM maintain expensive, and want to bear in mind in a stupendous manner.
(Picture credit score: Yukiko Noritake)
The carriage will really feel like journeying via a portal. Though there isn’t a expectation to role-play, you’d think about it unimaginable to not really feel a part of Celia’s world – overflowing with the glitz, glamour and decadent appeal of the period.
The bar space itself is self-contained, with these serving in character and a part of the expertise. Once you transfer into the principle eating carriage, an digital panel lifts up, and the chef may be seen making ready the meals. Luhrmann makes it clear that he desires the carriage to remodel into no matter you need it to be: ‘You would have a efficiency, a DJ, somebody singing an unplugged tune, or a speech, if it was a marriage. The ceiling modifications color, so that you may be in day or evening, or no matter you need it to be.’
(Picture credit score: Yukiko Noritake)
Nonetheless, it is the lavatory that Luhrmann believes is actually magical. ‘It has Artwork Deco touches, with influences from Shakespeare’s iconic play. Think about you’re inside Titania’s foliage-made little throne room. It seems to be like a bit jewel field.’
Luhrmann considers internet hosting a celebration to be an artwork type. ‘I take it very severely. You possibly can have probably the most great room, you may lay our a fortune on caviar, however what makes the occasion is an invisible hand casting the best individuals to be in the best house on the proper time. After which, after all, the music is essential.’
‘I’ve to go along with sluggish journey to get my soul again.’
Baz Luhrmann
So what would the producer of the 1998 hit ‘All people’s Free (To Put on Sunscreen)’ have taking part in within the Celia carriage? Naturally, a jazz rendition of Charli XCX’s Wuthering Heights album.
‘What I might do might be one thing like what I did with Bryan Ferry on Gatsby, the place I acquired Bryan, along with his great jazz orchestra, to cowl ‘Loopy in Love’ and do some trendy cuts. So I’d take the soundtrack to Wuthering Heights and do a Jazz Age model of it. You’d must ask Charli if that was OK, however I feel it’d be cool.’
(Picture credit score: Charlie McKay)
With a stupendous origin story and inside, set inside considered one of Britain’s most famed luxurious trains, Luhrmann desires friends to remove one factor: ‘In a world that’s so bereft of civility, kindness, heat, magic, love and wonder, I hope they go away feeling like they’ve a bit little bit of that – alongside wonderful meals, quite a lot of laughs and some cups of no matter it’s that they drink.
I actually need them to stumble again out in London, shimmy off into the evening and really feel like they haven’t been away for a day, however that they’ve been away for a month.’
(Picture credit score: Charlie McKay)
Launching in early summer time 2026, Celia is housed inside an authentic 1932 Pullman carriage and contains a cocktail bar, lounge, eating, and leisure space, bookable for teams of as much as 12 friends.
