Stéphane Rolland Brings Dalida Back to the Olympia

Stéphane Rolland showed his autumn/winter 2026/27 couture collection on Tuesday afternoon at the Olympia in Paris, the music hall where Dalida performed some of the biggest nights of her career. The runway ran straight off the theatre’s stage. Behind the models, black and white footage of Dalida singing and speaking played throughout, and the first look came out to a recording of “Il y a Toujours une Chanson” from her 1977 Olympia concert.

There were 33 looks. Rolland told WWD the show marks 40 years since the singer’s death, and that he wanted the clothes to catch something she had on stage, fragile and strong at once. He went to her early 1970s period for it, the comeback years, not the disco Dalida most people picture first.

The collection

Most of it is white. Crêpe, silk gazar, chiffon, organza, satin, and for the first stretch of the show barely any colour at all. The embroidery is where the money is: agates, crystals, mother of pearl, porcelain and precious stones worked into the gowns, with yellow and black diamonds in the jewellery. Deep red, black and silver come in near the end. Between the big gowns there were simpler things, long pareos, capes, trapeze coats.

Dalida was born in Cairo in 1933 to Italian parents and became a French star, singing across three languages her whole career, and Rolland has always had a foot in that same territory himself, dressing a lot of Middle Eastern royalty and red carpets. This one was personal for him, and it showed at the end, when Tunisian singer Oumaima Taleb came out unannounced with a live orchestra under Egyptian conductor Hany Farahat. Rolland joined her at the microphone. The last looks left to “Helwa Ya Baladi.”

Tickets were public

Odd detail for couture week: anyone could buy a seat. Tickets went on general sale at €25 to €55, with proceeds going to the Fondation des Hôpitaux, the French hospitals charity behind the Pièces Jaunes campaign. Couture shows basically never do this, the guest lists are the tightest in fashion, so a house putting seats on public sale for less than a concert ticket got noticed on its own before a single dress appeared.