India, June 27 -- No need to strain your neck. Not all Art Deco requires you to gaze upward at tall buildings.

The style left its mark on jewellery, fashion, posters, art and everyday objects too. It had to. In a world trying to distance itself from the Great War, a new optimism and new ideas were racing across continents. A fresh new visual language had emerged amid it all, and, in the design world, everyone, everywhere, was taking to it.

By the mid-1920s, rail technology had sped up to cross 160 km per hour. Steamships were competing to make the quickest trans-Atlantic crossings. A growing class of working professionals was starting to travel for pleasure.

These new services needed to advertise themselves, and the new design language...