Five-course meals for dogs, Lanvin dresses and the grande descente: Life on board the most luxurious cruise liners

If you hanker after the golden age of travel, if you yearn for adventures on the high seas that brim with luxury and a level of hospitality designed to stun, what are your options? You could do worse than drop anchor at the new Ocean Liners: Speed and Style exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

When I previewed this exhibition, I considered it through a filter of Old Hollywood. I saw Barbara Stanwyck in The Lady Eve playing a shimmering high-fashion card sharp who wins and loses and wins again the heart of a handsome young brewery heir (Henry Fonda). I saw Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers swathed in swans down, dancing on decks under moonlight.

There is no doubt that the grandest of the ocean liners of the 1920s and 1930s equalled and even surpassed the opulence depicted in Hollywood films. Ships like the SS Normandie and the Queen Mary were ambassadors for the nations that built them,...