The Boléro Effect: Stéphane Rolland’s Haute Couture Crescendo in Paris

A short mini jacket dress with black embroidered flare by Stéphane Rolland, part of his soigné AW25/26 collection shown in Paris. Photograph (above) by Andrea Heinsohn and cover picture by Jay Zoo for DAM 

For his new haute couture collection in Paris, Stéphane Rolland approached fashion as a form of composition, using structure, rhythm, and repetition as guiding principles. Presented at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, the collection was shaped by musical references to Maurice Ravel’s Boléro and the legacy of Ida Rubinstein, but its core remained firmly rooted in the French couturier's sculptural aesthetic. With an emphasis on architectural silhouettes, controlled pacing, and choreographed movement, the designer offered a study in contrasts, between restraint and excess, tradition and abstraction, translating musical form into couture construction. Story by Jeanne-Marie Cilento. Photographs by Andrea Heinsohn and Jay Zoo. 

Long poncho dress in red

chiffon with organza leaves. 

Photograph; Andrea Heinsohn

INSIDE the storied auditorium of the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées ~ where once Stravinsky's Rite of Spring caused a riot ~ Stéphane Rolland staged a performance of a different kind: his Autumn/Winter 2025 haute couture collection, composed in homage to Maurice Ravel and Ida Rubinstein. What unfolded on the runway was not merely a fashion show, but a dramatic and lyrical presentation. 

This season, Rolland's signature architectural flair and cinematic storytelling channeled the dual legacies of Ravel, the modernist composer with a taste for precision, and Rubinstein, the unconventional dancer and patron who dared to commission works that would shape ballet history. The result was a couture collection steeped in the sensual, the abstract and the folkloric, inspired by the rigor of an orchestra and the abandon of dance.

The designer’s fascination with Ravel’s Boléro served as a key inspiration. The piece’s famously unrelenting rhythm, a crescendo that builds over the course of nearly twenty minutes without deviating from its tempo, informed not only the music played live by Zahia Ziouani’s Divertimento Orchestra, but even the construction of the garments themselves. The designs on the runway revealed their own rhythm while escalating toward a dramatic climax.

"The collection oscillates between tension and ornament, between restraint and opulence, between the spirit of ballet and the machine. Like Rubinstein and Ravel, it is a meeting of opposites, a haute couture symphony where modern rigor, almost Japanese in style, is overtaken by Spanish fantasy," explains Stéphane Rolland.

This season, Stéphane Rolland's signature architectural flair and cinematic storytelling channeled the dual legacies of Maurice Ravel and Ida Rubinstein,

Black, backless jersey dress with 

cubic collar in gazar and satin.

Photograph: Jay Zoo

Rolland’s silhouettes emerged in orchestrated succession, structured like musical scores. The early pieces were bold and sharply drawn, dark crêpe gowns with severe cut-outs, tuxedos featuring oversized lapels, and suits sliced into perfect semicircles.

The monochromatic palette of black created a sculptural foundation upon which bursts of red, gold, and crystal later exploded with theatrical flourish. These were not garments simply made to be worn, but compositions rendered in textile, guided by a designer conductor's invisible baton.

The collection traced an Iberian thread, an ode to the Spanish inspirations that haunted both Ravel and Rubinstein’s imaginations. Rolland leaned into this shared dreamscape through matador coats embroidered with fine detail, flamenco-style gowns that billowed, and shimmering boleros that flickered under the lights. 

But instead of romanticizing tradition, Rolland reimagined it through a futuristic lens, executing the flamenco’s fire with sequins laid like circuitry, or shaping a bullfighter’s silhouette with cubist angularity. In doing so, he fused the ornamental past with a futuristic tomorrow.

The theme traces an Iberian thread, an ode to the Spanish inspirations that haunted both Ravel and Rubinstein’s imaginations

Openwork long dress in red silk

crepe and gazar, embroidered

with crystals and red cubes

Photograph: Andrea Heinsohn. 

Texture and movement were at the heart of Rolland’s collection too. Sculpted silk gazar, translucent chiffon, and sequins, some black and ghostly, others crystal-clear brought luminosity and depth. 

Capes cascaded like molten obsidian, while embroidery was embossed across bodices with baroque intensity. At every turn, the garments demanded attention not just for their artistry, but because they were made to move.

In many ways, the choice of venue was symbolic. The Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, built in 1913 by avant-garde architects and artists, was one of Paris’ earliest experiments in reinforced concrete, a fitting match for a collection that finds its poetry in structure. 

Commissioned by impresario Gabriel Astruc, the theatre was built upon the designs of brothers Auguste Perret and Gustave Perret following a scheme by Henry van de Velde. It was the first example of Art Deco architecture in the Paris. Less than two months after its inauguration, the Théâtre hosted the world premiere of the Ballets Russes' Rite of Spring, which provoked the famous classical music uproar.

It was here, too, that Ravel premiered Boléro in 1928, a work born from a complicated artistic history. After an initial plan to orchestrate pieces by Isaac Albéniz fell through, Ravel, frustrated, perhaps even threatened by competing interpretations, created something original, spare, and hypnotic. That energy of reinvention under pressure seems to echo in Rolland’s latest endeavor.

"The collection oscillates between tension and ornament, between restraint and opulence, between the spirit of ballet and the machine"

Dramatic white dress with cubic 

sleeves in jersey and gazar.

Photograph: Jay Zoo 

To understand this season’s emotional undercurrent, one must also look to the story of Ida Rubinstein herself. A woman of extremes, she traversed Paris in the Belle Époque as both muse and maverick. Orphaned early and shrouded in scandal, she crafted her own narrative, through performance, through patronage, and through sheer will. 

Whether commissioning ballets, curating her own company, or defying social norms, Rubinstein embodied a unique hybrid of discipline and abandon. Her life, much like Ravel’s music, was lived in a bold, and audacious way, often against the mores of the time. 

Rolland’s collection carries that spirit of duality. It is not merely a visual response to a piece of music or a historical figure; it is a considered meditation on contrasts, between heritage and modernity, between ornamentation and restraint. Even the finale, a white bridal gown crowned with a golden dome, balanced sacred symbolism with futuristic minimalism. The bride did not simply close the show; she concluded the symphony. 

The orchestral presence of Zahia Ziouani, conducting live, elevated the entire production from fashion to performance art. A trailblazing conductor known for her work in democratising classical music through youth education and cultural outreach, she mirrored Rolland’s ethos of access and transformation. Her ensemble’s interpretation of Boléro was commanding, steady, and alive with the very pulse Rolland sought to bring alive in fabric. The collaboration between conductor and couturier felt as integral to the narrative as the clothes themselves.

The designs are composed not with melodic frills but with architectural mastery, a visual boléro which recall Ravel’s virtuosity and Rubinstein’s expressive flair

Matador vest in silk embroidered

with gold and crystal and a low

waisted long. black skirt in gazar.

Photograph: Andrea Heinsohn

There’s a potent symbolism in Rolland choosing to build a collection around Boléro, a piece that, by Ravel’s own admission, contains no melody in the conventional sense. What it does possess, however, is an unrelenting pace. 

The fashion, too, avoided traditional flourishes in favor of structural repetition and crescendo. The garments are composed not with melodic frills but with architectural mastery, a visual boléro which recall Ravel’s virtuosity and Rubinstein’s expressive flair.

And yet, beneath the precision, the collection was undeniably emotional. This was haute couture not as fantasy escape, but as reflection ~ on legacy, on transformation, and on the meeting point between rigor and reverie. Yet Stéphane Rolland composed a collection animated by his own craftsmanship and contemporary vision.

As the final notes faded and the bride vanished into darkness, the audience remained suspended, caught somewhere between past and future, sound and silence, cloth and choreography. Rolland’s latest couture collection wasn’t just a tribute to Ravel or Rubinstein. It was a reminder that when fashion listens closely to music, and when design dances with history, something more transcendent can emerge.

Scroll to see more highlights from Stephane Rolland's Autumn/Winter 2025 Haute Couture Collection. 

Stéphane Rolland, Autumn-Winter 2025/2026, Paris Haute Couture. Photograph: Jay Zoo

Stéphane Rolland, Autumn-Winter 2025/2026, Paris Haute Couture. Photograph: Andrea Heinsohn

Stéphane Rolland, Autumn-Winter 2025/2026, Paris Haute Couture. Photograph: Jay Zoo

Stéphane Rolland, Autumn-Winter 2025/2026, Paris Haute Couture. Photograph: Andrea Heinsohn

Stéphane Rolland, Autumn-Winter 2025/2026, Paris Haute Couture. Photograph; Jay Zoo 

Stéphane Rolland, Autumn-Winter 2025/2026, Paris Haute Couture. Photograph: Andrea Heinsohn

Stéphane Rolland, Autumn-Winter 2025/2026, Paris Haute Couture. Photograph; Jay Zoo

Stéphane Rolland, Autumn-Winter 2025/2026, Paris Haute Couture. Photograph: Andrea Heinsohn

Stéphane Rolland, Autumn-Winter 2025/2026, Paris Haute Couture. Photograph: Jay Zoo

Stéphane Rolland, Autumn-Winter 2025/2026, Paris Haute Couture. Photograph: Andrea Heinsohn

Stéphane Rolland, Autumn-Winter 2025/2026, Paris Haute Couture. Photograph; Jay Zoo

Stéphane Rolland, Autumn-Winter 2025/2026, Paris Haute Couture. Photograph: Andrea Heinsohn

Stéphane Rolland, Autumn-Winter 2025/2026, Paris Haute Couture. Photograph: Jay Zoo

Stéphane Rolland, Autumn-Winter 2025/2026, Paris Haute Couture. Photograph: Andrea Heinsohn

Stéphane Rolland, Autumn-Winter 2025/2026, Paris Haute Couture. Photograph: Jay Zoo

Stéphane Rolland, Autumn-Winter 2025/2026, Paris Haute Couture. Photograph: Andrea Heinsohn

Stéphane Rolland, Autumn-Winter 2025/2026, Paris Haute Couture. Photograph: Jay Zoo

Stéphane Rolland, Autumn-Winter 2025/2026, Paris Haute Couture. Photograph: Jay Zoo

Stéphane Rolland, Autumn-Winter 2025/2026, Paris Haute Couture. Photograph: Jay Zoo

Stéphane Rolland, Autumn-Winter 2025/2026, Paris Haute Couture. Photograph: Jay Zoo

Stéphane Rolland, Autumn-Winter 2025/2026, Paris Haute Couture. Photograph: Andrea Heinsohn

Stéphane Rolland, Autumn-Winter 2025/2026, Paris Haute Couture. Photograph: Andrea Heinsohn

Raku Meets Runway: The Kinetic Beauty of Kamoda’s Clay Reimagined in Issey Miyake IM Men's Collection

The brilliant hues of the new Issey Miyake IM Men collection at the Cartier Foundation in Paris. Photograph (above) by Jay Zoo for DAM. 

Under the scorching summer sun in Paris, Issey Miyake’s IM Men returned to the runway with Dancing Texture, a Spring/Summer 2026 collection inspired by Japanese ceramicist Shoji Kamoda. The show transformed fabric into sculpture, channeling bold forms into designs that shimmered, swirled, and unfolded in motion. With a new ASICS footwear collaboration and a design team pushing boundaries, the collection marked a powerful fusion of tradition, technology, and transformation. Story by Jeanne-Marie Cilento. Photographs by Jay Zoo and Andrea Heinsohn  

The fabrics recalling the ceramicist 

Shoji Kamoda, were key to the new 

collection shown in Paris. 

Photograph: Andrea Heinsohn 

ON a steaming summer morning in Paris, Issey Miyake’s IM Men's collection was presented at the Cartier Foundation, heat radiating from the contemporary art museum's steel and glass. Yet the fashion offered a bracing dash of cool minimalism, a meditation on form, motion, and material memory. 

For Spring/Summer 2026, the Japanese house stepped into new terrain by looking to an old master: pioneering Japanese ceramicist Shoji Kamoda (1933–1983), whose short but radical career transformed the very language of clay. Now, his quiet revolution finds a second life, this time, not on the wheel, but on the body.

Kamoda, trained in Kyoto and active in Mashiko and Töno, was known for challenging the boundaries of ceramic form and texture. Through bold glazes, engraved surfaces, and sculptural shapes, he rejected the purely functional in favor of pieces that seemed to hum with inner movement. IM Men, the last line personally envisioned by Issey Miyake, takes that same spirit of experimentation and applies it to cloth. The result is Dancing Texture, a kinetic menswear collection that interprets Kamoda’s essence not as reference, but as transformation.

The show was an audacious, cerebral continuation of Issey Miyake’s vision ~ not simply designed, but engineered, often with humour,  intelligence, and occasionally delightful excess

The performance part of the show added another 

layer of meaning to the collection, with the dancers 

wearing the textiles inspired by Kamoda's pottery.

Photograph: Jay Zoo 

With the guidance of design trio Sen Kawahara, Yuki Itakura, and Nobutaka Kobayashi, the collection unfolded as a dialogue between art and garment. The runway, bathed in the intense light, played host to a series of pieces that shifted, shimmered, and unfolded. 

Dramatic choreography animated the designs in ways that brought Kamoda’s tactile world to life. Like clay turned on a wheel, the clothes seemed to emerge in real time, catching light, casting shadow, constantly re-forming.

Divided into a conceptually rich series, the collection offered a masterclass in textile innovation. The Urokomon series drew from Kamoda’s recurring use of fish scale-like patterns, employing a process where printed designs are gradually revealed by washing away parts of the upper fabric layer, echoing the unpredictability of firing ceramics. The Gintō pieces channeled the metallic lustre of Kamoda’s silver-glazed works, rendered here in fabrics that folded like armor yet floated like paper. Kaiyu used pigment printing to mimic the contrast between celadon glazes and exposed clay, while the Engrave series featured jacquard-woven, heat-sensitive materials that seemed to rise in waves under the touch of warmth.

The ceramicist was most keenly felt in the collection's philosophical undercurrent: the idea that everyday objects, when shaped with care and purpose carry emotional resonance

The designs mixed the futuristic with

folds that related back to origami, plus

the new footwear designed with Asics.

Photograph: Jay Zoo 

Each technique served not as homage, but as extension. Just as Kamoda stretched the boundaries of what ceramics could be, so too does IM Men stretch the assumptions of what menswear can look and feel like. 

The silhouettes ranged from space-age tailoring, coats with collars that unfolded like origami sculptures, to garments that, when laid flat, formed geometric shapes recalling the symmetry of wheel-thrown pots. Throughout, there was a persistent sense of duality: structured yet soft, organic yet engineered, tactile yet futuristic.

Iridescent textiles flashed under the blazing light; oversized hats and sculptural outerwear veered into the surreal. But then came the contrast, a whisper-light tunic in ash green and an urbane black ensemble that grounded the show in a language Miyake always spoke fluently: quiet innovation. These pieces captured the heart of the brand’s legacy, where invention is not a gimmick but a way to honor motion, simplicity, and surprise.

One of the most intriguing additions to this season’s show was the quiet debut of Issey Miyake Foot, a footwear initiative created in collaboration with Asics

IM Men is a return to the early, rigorous

work of Japanese founder Issey Miyake.

Photograph: Jay Zoo 

This was also a show of new beginnings. While Homme Plissé, Miyake’s pleated menswear staple, has now migrated to nomadic presentations abroad, IM Men has taken its place in Paris. 

And with it, a return to the rigorous, conceptual experimentation that defined Miyake’s early career. His influence, both aesthetic and philosophical, was everywhere. The very idea of clothing as an extension of movement, of fabric as a medium to be sculpted, continues to underpin the brand’s evolving identity.

One of the most intriguing additions to this season’s show was the quiet debut of Issey Miyake Foot, a footwear initiative created in collaboration with Asics. 

The first product: Hyper Taping, a laceless shoe built from dynamic straps that sprout from the brand’s iconic side stripe. The result felt more like wearable sculpture than streetwear, its form recalling cleatless football boots, its function grounded in ergonomic design. Much like Kamoda’s vessels, these shoes seemed to reject any single purpose, instead suitable for a range of activities.

While Homme Plissé, Miyake’s pleated menswear staple, has migrated to nomadic presentations abroad, IM Men in Paris has returned to the rigorous, conceptual experimentation that defined Miyake’s early career

The designs were contemporary but with a

 universality that made them feel timeless.

Photograph: Jay Zoo 

At its core, Dancing Texture was an exhibition of restraint and risk, of translating heritage without imitating it. It asked: what happens when the touch of the hand, the movement of the body, and the spirit of craft converge? 

Through the language of materials, IM Men found an answer that felt neither from the past nor futuristic but rather, timeless. Kamoda may have worked in clay, but his legacy now ripples across new surfaces, carried forward by a house that still believes fashion can be sculpture, and that clothing, like ceramics, can hold memory in motion.

The ceramicist was perhaps most keenly felt in the show’s philosophical undercurrent: the idea that everyday objects, when shaped with care and purpose, can carry emotional resonance. Just as Kamoda’s vessels were never just decorative, these garments weren’t merely for show. They invited a slow gaze, a reconsideration of surface and structure, a connection between hand and material that defies trend cycles.

IM Men’s SS26 show was not about nostalgia or legacy maintenance. It was an audacious, cerebral continuation of Issey Miyake’s vision: that clothing is not simply designed, but engineered, often with humor, always with intelligence, and occasionally with delightful excess. In a city overrun with maximalism, it offered a quieter, more studied kind of spectacle, one where fabric and light, tradition, invention and craft could all dance together.

Scroll down to see more highlights from the IM Men collection by Jay Zoo