Meryll Rogge, a Ghent-based designer and graduate of Antwerp’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts, has found the sweet spot between critical acclaim and commercial success. A favourite among buyers and fashion journalists alike, Rogge launched her eponymous brand four years ago, mere weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic spread across Europe. Since then, she has operated out of a spacious barn in the countryside. We sat down with the designer to discuss fame, independence, technology, the perils and challenges of the contemporary fashion system, and the contrast between working for a major fashion house and running a smaller brand. With years of experience at Marc Jacobs and Dries Van Noten, Rogge has a unique perspective on both.
hube: Going back to your time at the Royal Academy, do you remember what you expected from the industry back then, and how you saw the role of the designer?
Meryll Rogge: When I was graduating, Loïc Prigent’s documentaries about Marc Jacobs and Louis Vuitton had just come out. They gave me a glimpse of what it was like to work in a large, well-structured fashion house, and I had certain expectations about what lay ahead. One key thing about the Academy in Antwerp is that it’s built around helping you find your voice. The assignments are broad, with few guidelines, giving you the freedom to create whatever you want. While we had classes on fabrics and knitting, the real focus was on finding your creative voice, and you developed the technical skills along the way.
For me, my first job was a dream come true. It was exactly where I wanted to be. I enjoyed the process of building a collection – starting with fabrics, taking time to choose materials. A structured environment, even with its dose of chaos, really worked for me. Working within a team, in the microcosm of a fashion house, was enriching. It was a big contrast from school, but it came at the right time and taught me how to collaborate and delegate.
h: What was surprising for you about NYC?
MR: I moved to New York at 23, before I’d even graduated. I had just finished my BA and still had my MA ahead of me. It was never supposed to be a long-term move, but then I got hired and ended up staying for seven years. It wasn’t one big decision, but more like a gradual process of extending my stay bit by bit. At first, I was running errands around the city and helping out in the studio. I didn’t fully grasp what a huge life change it was. But when I moved there full-time in October 2008, right in the middle of the financial crisis, I saw a whole different side of the world.
As Europeans, we’re already exposed to American culture through movies, music, and media, so I thought I knew what to expect. But living there is a different experience – it’s immersive, rich, and sometimes overwhelming. I discovered so many new things, from food to music. I attended countless concerts and found living abroad incredibly enriching. I’ve always had a fascination with experiencing life in other places, and I still do.
h: It sounds like an adventure.
MR: It really was. I stayed in New York until I turned 30, and those years were incredibly formative. They opened my eyes to the world. In the studio, I worked with people from so many different countries. The Academy was international too, but in Belgium, I still had my old life, my family, and my friends. In New York, it was a fresh start – I had no one. I could reinvent myself and choose how to live my life. It’s such a great experience to have in your 20s.
h: When you’re young, free, and curious, right?
MR: And self-sufficient. There’s something magical about that stage of life.
h: And what motivated you to come back?
MR: I got offered a new job, and that was the only reason I returned.
h: It must have been strange to be in New York during the financial crisis. How do you think it affected the fashion industry?
MR: I was so young at the time, that I didn’t fully realize what was happening until a few years later. When I arrived, there was a hiring freeze across the industry, but I was lucky to get hired just before the cutoff, and my visa was sponsored. I didn’t grasp then what it meant for so many people in fashion and beyond. Working in a large fashion house felt like being in a cocoon, shielded from the financial turmoil. Our job was to create dreams and clothes that inspired us. Now, with my own brand, I see firsthand how politics and the economy directly affect production, sales, and business decisions.
h: What motivated you to launch your own brand?
MR: We launched in March 2020, just ten days before the first lockdown. Miraculously, we received significant orders from our first showroom in Paris – Bergdorf, Nordstrom, Ssense – who we still work with today. The challenge was delivering those orders when factories were closed and the future was uncertain. We had to take things day by day. We postponed the collection and took our time with production, which was helpful since I had never produced a collection before. We also moved to the countryside in November 2019 and set up a studio there. We’ve been there ever since, but we’ll move eventually. During these four years, I also had two children, so being in a calm, slower environment was really beneficial. We simplified our lives to handle the intensity of the job.
h: When you say ‘we’, how big is your team?
MR: Initially, it was just me and my parents, who were stuck at home due to COVID and helped in the early months. Since then, the team has grown. Now we’re three and a half, plus myself, and we work with a lot of freelancers – around 30 people in total, who collaborate with us seasonally. Some help for just a day, others for weeks. Flexibility is key to how we run the brand.
h: When launching your brand, did you already have a clear idea of the creative direction you wanted, and were there things in the industry you wanted to avoid?
MR: I knew I wanted to start my own collection, and I also wanted to focus on my family. I don’t mind working hard, but I like having control over my own schedule. I probably work more than most, just because that’s the nature of the job, but I love the flexibility. For example, I didn’t take maternity leave because it wasn’t feasible, but I could work with my baby next to me. That would’ve been impossible in-house. So the timing was perfect for me.
I also find it more efficient to work flexibly – some days from home, other days from the office. Not everyone has to be present all the time. It helps keep things fresh, especially when you work with different people each day. It breaks the routine, which I’m wary of. Fashion is repetitive in a way, but it’s always changing, and I love that balance.
h: What’s your favourite part of your work?
MR: My favourite part is working with talented, passionate people. I collaborate with print designers, knit designers, photographers, stylists, and casting agents – people who are experts at what they do and truly love it. That’s the most rewarding part for me.
h: Do you manage social media yourself?
A: I do, and I find it quite difficult. I don’t even have a personal Instagram account. I switched to a professional account in 2019, which we now use for the brand. We don’t have many followers, but they’re all real. I’m not someone who enjoys self-promotion. It’s probably not the smartest strategy, but I don’t feel the need. I love talking to journalists or speaking in front of an audience, but I don’t find much value in sharing my private life.
h: It feels like so much today is about visibility and image, often without much substance. Do you agree?
MR: True, but at the same time, there’s a backlash against that. We crave authenticity, but all we get are perfect images on Instagram. As an emerging brand, it’s been challenging to get the right content. During COVID, we only had photos from one shoot, and it’s hard to build a community that way. So we started collaborating with a curator from Paris. We sent our clothes to photographers and let them do whatever they wanted with them. It resulted in some genuinely diverse images. We still do collaborations like that, but sometimes the results don’t fully align with the brand’s identity. It’s interesting, but it can also be confusing.
In the past, creative directors produced a collection, a show, and a lookbook – that was it. Now, you have to manage your entire online image, which is a completely different job. I’ve learned so much from producing our own lookbooks over the last four years, from casting to booking photographers. But it’s a role that wasn’t originally part of a designer’s job. Now, it’s about creating 50 images a season, which can be overwhelming unless you have a specialized team and big budgets.
h: Lastly, when you think about the future of the fashion industry, how do you see it, and how do you feel about it?
MR: I see a growing gap between the larger fashion conglomerates and semi-independent brands, some of which are backed by players like Dover Street Market, which still feels different from conglomerates. The clientele for these big brands is shifting away from those who shop at independent labels. It wasn’t always like this – the fashion crowd used to enjoy shopping at the big brands. Some larger labels are still relevant, but others have become disconnected from the fashion community. Trendsetters may attend their shows and wear their clothes due to obligations or sponsorships, but would they do so otherwise? I don’t think so. That gap is only widening.
