Couture and art collided with a spectacular bang at Stephane Rolland’s fall-winter 2011-12 show Tuesday — a collection dominated by high-drama gowns that were less garments than ambulatory sculptures.

Satin catsuits with dramatic slits up the thighs and built-in billowing capes were cinched at the waist with oversized metal belts that glinted with chunks of fool’s gold. Gold tubes stacked in an hourglass shape embellished the front of long-sleeved sheath dresses.

"That belongs in a museum," whispered one of the droves of chic couture-buying ladies from her front-row perch as a mermaid gown with an oversized metal and satin bow on the back swept by.

But it was the wedding gown — a kimono knit out of thick white yarn into intricate mosaic patterns — that took the audience’s breath away and best showcased Rolland’s astounding technical know-how.

The dress was so heavy, so monumental, that the model who was sporting it got stuck at the end of the runway, her stick-thin thighs not strong enough to make a U-turn. An usher and Rolland’s chic ivory-haired mother scurried over the help her maneuver the train.

With no ready-to-wear line or lucrative perfume or cosmetics lines, Rolland is among the few Paris houses to live entirely off of couture. His dramatic, statement dresses — confected over thousands of hours in his Paris atelier — have won him high-profile fans that include Middle Eastern princesses and Russian billionaires.

They keep coming back — always in greater and greater numbers — because somehow the French designer manages to raise the bar season after season. Tuesday’s show surely hiked it up a notch or two.