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Meryll Rogge has had a big year. Buckle up: the 40-year-old Belgian designer scooped the 2025 Andam Grand Prize; was appointed creative director of OTB-owned, Milan-based brand Marni shortly after; and launched a knitwear brand called BB Wallace. Her namesake label also joined the Paris Fashion Week official show calendar, and she was given the responsibility of closing the curtain on this pivotal Spring/Summer 2026 season.
I first interviewed her via Google Meet on Saturday morning at 8.30am. “She is an early riser,” her PR told me beforehand. Rogge is in the airport lounge in Milan, about to depart for Paris. “Tomorrow is casting, and then Monday/Tuesday is show prep. So, busy, busy,” she says.
Rogge has been thinking of the vibe she wants the guests to leave with. “The press and the buyers and everybody, you’ve been through a lot. It’s been the craziest month ever for everyone — so many new impulses, so much to register,” she says. “The idea is to leave you going home with some beauty. That’s what we’re striving for: peaceful, powerful but beautiful.”
And she did. The collection drew inspiration from Cookie Mueller’s autobiography Walking Through Clear Water in a Pool Painted Black published in 1990. Rogge was moved by Mueller’s free-spiritedness. “The collection is not about her. The collection is more about not having this hierarchy. She had a fashion brand, was a stripper and was an art critic. She did all these things in a very personal way,” she tells me.
The show — which was her second (and first on the official schedule) — was held in the intimate courtyard of 18th century Hôtel de Soubise, which houses the National Archives Museum. I met Rogge there on Monday, in a tent built by the show production company Profirst for the backstage area. Taking a break from a session with Spanish stylist Esther Matilla, Rogge shows me the sewing area and walks me through the collection. There are dresses that have a leather back and printed front. “For me, there’s always something fun to do in terms of clashing textures, materials within the piece and within the look,” she explains. There’s a blue shearling jacket, made with Longchamp’s deadstock she received as part of the Andam grant, chic pants with satin stripes, and a new sporty version of the boxer bloomer that has been an Instagram sensation after Rihanna, Dua Lipa and Chloë Sevigny wore it.
Rogge worked with Marc Jacobs and Dries Van Noten before founding her brand five years ago, which is based outside of Ghent, Belgium. There, she employs a team of four, supported by freelancers. “ It’s in the countryside, an old renovated barn, a big open space. There are a few sites and mini side buildings, where there’s the fabric room. It’s quite special,” Rogge says. (BB Wallace is also based there.)
She was appointed at Marni in July, following the departure of Francesco Risso after almost 10 years as creative director. Rogge has moved to Milan with her family, and now navigates the typical situation of designers who have their own brand alongside a big label for which they work. “There are a lot of lunchtime meetings, Zooms, Facetimes,” she says. “I can’t even describe how grateful I am for how much the team in Belgium stepped up. They’re mostly women at the moment. They’re so talented and powerful, and just get it done.”
How does she express her creativity through the different brands? “I needed more outlets for all the ideas, which means that with BB Wallace [a blend of the names of Rogge’s children], it’s very clear what we’re doing: it’s timeless things, very beautiful shapes, natural materials. Meryll Rogge is more free in mind. It’s a test lab for ideas. I just felt more free than ever to do something a bit more, I don’t wanna say punkish because that’s not the right word, but a bit more daring. And then on the Milan side, it’s a whole different thing, which I also really can’t wait to release.” Her debut show for Marni is expected in February 2026.
Prices of the Meryll Rogge collection range from €150 to €2,500. For BB Wallace, cashmere crewnecks land between $720 and $920; jackets are $1,530. There are also learnings business-wise. Now that BB Wallace is sold direct-to-consumer (DTC) as well as wholesale, the plan is to develop the former channel for Meryll Rogge, too. For now, Meryll Rogge is distributed through around 50 stores, including Bergdorf Goodman, Harvey Nichols in London, and Beams in Tokyo.
Brand extensions
Another pillar of Rogge’s strategy for expanding her eponymous brand — which was part of her winning Andam pitch — is to develop accessories. It makes sense to help build a sizable business. ”It was important to tell the Andam jury that we wanted to work on two things: one is accessories and one is direct-to-consumer. The accessories we were able to tackle in a beginning step,” Rogge says. The prize comes with a year’s worth of mentoring, which will be delivered by Sidney Toledano, advisor to LVMH chair and CEO Bernard Arnault.
This season, she is introducing footwear for the first time, notably variations of the traditional boat shoe. “I grew up with them; but also, Cookie [Mueller] spent a lot of time in Provincetown, New England. She was working in the harbour and the boats,” Rogge says. “I thought the hints to that were charming.” The small footwear collection is available in the showroom.
Backstage at the show, there are also tables filled with accessories, notably jewellery pieces — safety pins, studs and pearls in bold proportion — made in collaboration with Antwerp-based jewellery brand Wouters Hendrix. However, for now, jewellery is just being produced for the show and to support another Belgian brand.
What about handbags? “We have a start of something, but we cannot call it a handbag collection,” she says. Rogge was inspired by vintage woodcutting bags. “It’s basically two handles and a piece of fabric to transport to wood,” she explains. In the show, models transported flowers in this style of bag.
There are also imposing double-tip belts for SS26. Like a harness? “It’s not part of my vocabulary because I don’t think women should be put in harnesses. It’s just to create a stronger accessory identity, which was important to be in this punkish language,” she says. “Our women are functioning women in society that have jobs, have families, obligations, things to do; I don’t see the point of putting them in corsets, or any of that.”
The collection includes two wedding looks, one for women and one for men. But in a departure from the norm, she sent these down the runway halfway through the show, rather than at the end. “A wedding isn’t the end of the story,” Rogge explains. “The wedding comes in somewhere — and then life continues.”
At a time when female designers are underrepresented, it’s refreshing to see a woman in such a prominent spot in the calendar, and the sun was shining, too. It was just as well the sun was out — she didn’t have a plan B. “Touching wood as we speak,” she said on Saturday.
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