She earned her stripes with Marc Jacobs in New York and as the head designer at Dries Van Noten, but now Meryll Rogge is presenting her life’s work with her eponymous label. Her energetic designs, often somewhere between daywear and evening wear, are a hit with the best boutiques in the world.

With 20 to watch, Flanders DC presents twenty emerging talents, who recently took their first steps in the worlds of design or fashion. We believe they will have great success in the future.

Meryll Rogge

Meryll Rogge © Sloan Laurits

Where does the magic of the discipline come from, for you?

Usually, the magic comes towards the end of a collection. When you’ve tried already tried a few things to see what works and what doesn’t work. Those are also the most difficult moments. There’s a lot of time pressure, many things have to be done and you’re asking a lot of your people. Creation is tricky and difficult, but it’s often in those difficult moments that a spark is created.

© Jorre Janssens

© Jorre Janssens

© Jorre Janssens

© Jorre Janssens

What is the biggest challenge in your work?

Finding time for creativity. Other things are always taking precedence. This remains a challenge for every entrepreneur. I spend maybe ten percent of my time creating – not even that. Hopefully one day that will balance out, once we have an established team. Right now it’s going well, but we’ve only been around for two years and everyone still has to find their way a little bit. I try to outsource as many tasks as possible to people who can do them better than myself. My brother is my financial director, for example. I’m not going to enter any cash flow into Excel myself, because I have no knowledge of that at all. I do stay appraised of everything and hold meetings with everyone to see what is happening. What’s the status of production? How is that pattern going? I have to keep up with the smallest details, otherwise it won’t work.

How do you deal with technology and sustainability?

I founded my brand just before the Covid-19 pandemic came along. So we were thrown straight into the deep end. No one could travel to Paris, and there were no fashion weeks either. We created a digital showroom that we continue to do every season. In terms of sustainability, there’s still a lot of uncertainty in the fashion world on that subject. What’s sustainable and what isn’t? We certainly do our part. We don’t do studs on jeans, for example. It makes them easier to recycle. And nearly every season, we have an upcycling project. This winter, we made scarves from old wool blankets. It’s a complicated process, because you need a cutting plan for each and every scarf. With our small team, this is not yet possible for every collection piece.

© Jorre Janssens

© Jorre Janssens

© Jorre Janssens

© Jorre Janssens