“The idea to start a collection was already there before the Academy…. I took a year off to really think it through. Also I traveled a little bit. [I also started consulting.] I would go to Marc in New York to work on the collection, and also work with Dries. With Dries, everything happens at the beginning; and then with Marc, everything happens at the end. So this was kind of aligned and they were all okay with it. So I did this two seasons in a row.
After I left, Dries had sold to Puig and they wanted to develop the fragrance and beauty line. Dries says, ‘Listen, we’re also working on another project, so do you want to do some consulting for that?’ That seemed really exciting because I love working on stuff other than clothes. I think it really speaks to me in a way. We’re still collaborating on this six, seven years after. So this has been a wonderful new world opening up.”
Rogge establishes her headquarters in a white stone house with a red tiled roof located in a field in the small town of Deinze.
2020
Meryll Rogge launches for fall 2020. “I started the brand in March, 2020. We launched in Paris two weeks before COVID, so that was fun. We had 35 retailers that ordered; all the factories were closed, but we managed to renegotiate the delivery window.
With Meryll Rogge we always seek to inspire by the visual language, the casting, the way we think about the environment of the show or what we do after. But more specifically, it’s of course a lot of attention to materials, textures, and also pushing our limits a little bit of what we do with print…. There are historical elements, but there are also vintage elements.”
The designer has her first viral moment, courtesy of Nordstrom. Rogge designed “a glove that was also a boa [that] was made of bright red duchess silk. Unfortunately, the shot of the model was a little bit strange; she was posing in a blue dress with two red arms. They didn’t show the back, and people started commenting that she looked like a lobster, and it went completely viral, and they had to stop the comment section. But I laughed so hard at all the comments, I thought it was fantastic. I mean, that’s what you want. You want people to react to your stuff, and to have this from season one was amazing.”
Slips and sport combine in Meryll Rogge’s fall 2021 ready-to-wear collection.
Photo: Sloan Laurits / Courtesy of Meryll Rogge
Slips and sport combine in Meryll Rogge’s fall 2021 ready-to-wear collection.
Photo: Sloan Laurits / Courtesy of Meryll Rogge
Denim and deconstruction for spring 2022 ready-to-wear
Photo: Courtesy of Meryll Rogge
Blown-up proportions for spring 2022 ready-to-wear
Photo: Courtesy of Meryll Rogge
2021
March: Rogge, speaking of her fall collection, says there was “an accent on luxury,” via the materials used, and an “aspect of vintage reference. I’m kind of leaning on classics of the past, really trying to recreate them in a way that is ours.”