Congratulations are in order: Meryll Rogge married her partner this past May in Cadaqués, the same small Catalonian fishing village where Salvador Dalí once lived (his house has been preserved as a museum), and where the designer’s family has a home. This joyous occasion inspired a very personal collection. “Usually you are like, ‘Okay, what are we going to do this season?’ And you have a moodboard and you come across all these references. But this season was the opposite for me,” Rogge explained. “It literally started from: ‘What do I want to wear? What do I want to put on?’ It was a very intuitive way of designing and very freeing in a way…to have this moment of guilty pleasure [where] I can design whatever I want because I have nobody watching me or no frame of reference.”
What does a fashion designer wear to her own wedding? Rogge figured there were three choices: Go with something vintage, ask a colleague to make something, or do it herself. Not surprisingly, she settled on the last option and went all in, creating four distinct dresses for herself. All of them made it into the collection and became the starting point for the rest of the offering. The most casual of the quartet (look 4) was a patchwork denim jacket and full skirt made, the designer said, of “upcycled Levi’s 501s—like the 1980s kind that doesn’t stretch and that really survived through time,” which referenced a 1969 wedding dress made by Yves Saint Laurent for Gersende de Sabran-Pontevès, duchess of Orléans, in shades of white. Retaining the palette and the piecing idea, Rogge chose a humbler and more substantial material. This idea was further developed into more casual pieces in blue denim, such as a fitted corset top, an overskirt, and removable collars on a country-gentleman-style check coat with outsize proportions.
Next up was a kicky little ’60s-ish number (look 2), sheer white with same-fabric squares attached by big grommets fluttering over its surface. More mindful, more demure was a long, ivory-raw-hemmed sheath (look 16) made of the crinkled satin that is a brand signature. The pièce de résistance (look 20) was inspired by another Spaniard who lived in a fishing village, the couturier’s couturier, Cristóbal Balenciaga. In this case the references were general rather than specific. “I was just tapping the general codes and use of gatherings and drapes that lingered in my mind from Balenciaga,” Rogge explained. “It was more a subtle homage to Spain in all its facets too; the clean vast volumes like the white houses, thick walls, the simplicity—there are not too many frills or lace, only the enlarged broderie anglaise as decoration—and of course the total indulgence of creating at the same time a big fat wedding cake of a dress!”
Other takes on the Iberian inspiration were “matador” sweaters deliciously smothered in bows, which you might choose to wear with a pair of tapered track-style pants with side stripes. Decoration came in the form of dried siempre vivas, flowers commonly used in Cadaqués, which inspired the daisy motif that was rendered as a print and appeared on a chunky creature-like sweater and scarf with lurex shine. Bead versions of the humble love-me-love-me-not bloom were placed in orderly fashion on a black crinkle satin dress. The most elaborate and impressive variant was a top and skirt with allover melted gold tubes and beads forming daisies on the front, with inside-out construction on the back that would allow a woman to actually sit down.
More broadly, the duality of the design was linked to the range of emotions that a momentous occasion can evoke. You can feel glowy one minute and anxious the next. To try to capture those intense feelings, Rogge opted to photograph professional dancers in the clothes. At the presentation today, these look-book pictures were blown up and arranged in proximity to the garments on dress forms and with awareness of the sumptuous interiors of the 18th-century hôtel particulier and private residence of the ambassador of Belgium, Jo Indekeu, and his wife, Dagmar Indekeu, who invited Rogge to show there. “We have to support the talented Belgian young people,” said the gracious host.
On the matter of houses, Internet HR has decided that Rogge, who left Marc Jacobs to be head of womenswear at Dries Van Noten before launching her namesake line, might succeed her former, green-thumbed Belgian boss. The designer had nothing to say on that front, and we’ll leave it at that because this collection, born out of personal joy, deserves its time in the spotlight.
