The Tamesis
If fashion is destiny, then Meryll Rogge has long been destined to land at Marni.
Around 2008, after getting his first salary as an assistant at Marc Jacobs, the young Belgian designer bought a pair of wooden platform Marni sandals from Saks Fifth Avenue. “I wore them until they broke,” she admitted. But even before that, she discovered her colorful, eclectic style as a teenager, choosing a green Marni dress for her brother’s wedding.
Thinking back to his youth, Rogge recalls: “It allowed me to express myself in an expressive way without looking like someone who was not me. The person who was wearing Marni at the time was not loud but had a personality – that’s what I liked.”
Rogge accepted the position of creative director at Marni last July, a month after winning the ANDAM award, where Renzo Rosso, founder of Only the Brave and owner of Marni since 2012, sat on the jury. Her appointment comes amid an influx of new hires as many high-profile designers swap one European luxury brand for another, but if she is one of the lesser-known names – let alone one of the few women in a predominantly male talent pool – she does not lack credentials.
Rogge was a student at the Royal Academy in Antwerp when she interned at Marc Jacobs in New York. That internship turned into a seven-year gig. “That was very attractive to me, there were all the books, all the artwork, the reference material – I felt like I was at home,” she said. But eventually Belgium called her back through Dries Van Noten. “I wasn’t looking for it, but I got to be the female executive there and take on more responsibility, and I worked closely with Dries — it was an opportunity to move up.”
Around 2019, she felt she was ready to go solo, a plan she’d had since she was a teenager. “It started out at 25, then it became 30, then it became 35 — and that’s when I couldn’t resist it anymore,” she said of launching her eponymous brand. But the timing was tricky: In March 2020, she launched her collection in a showroom in the Marais district of Paris. Ten days before the world went into lockdown, she had already secured orders from 35 stores; eventually, all but one stuck with her, even though COVID-19 restrictions forced her to delay the release of her debut album. Her Meryll Rogge collection is full of color, wit and sophistication, but always with a little something unexpected.
Blame it on that Marni dress she wore as a teenager—Rogge has an anachronistic elegance and a flair for patchwork not dissimilar to the style Marni founder Consuelo Castiglioni once practiced.
Founded in 1994 as a spin-off of her husband’s family business, Ciwifurs, Marni’s early days were modest by 2026 standards: no bags, no jewelry, just a lot of knee-high coats and knee-high boots, though it quickly became known for an eccentric personality. As Castiglioni puts it, her approach Fashion In 2007, his goal was to “treat fur as a fabric, maybe dye it, not have a lining, just close it with a little string, so the pieces look modern and wearable.” Once the fur comes off, so do the clothes, with incredible prints and vintage shapes that only a woman’s eye and touch can put together.
Roger’s new job requires a change of address. She moved from Antwerp to Milan with her husband Clement van Weive and their children aged five and three. They spent their weekends getting to know their adopted hometown. But the task doesn’t require a change in aesthetics. “I really grew up with Marni,” she said. “So I can remember in an abstract way what it means and what it means at different stages.”
