Can a designer redefine a house without rewriting its soul? Can quiet conviction outshine celebrity hype? With the appointment of Belgian designer Meryll Rogge as Marni’s new creative director, the answer may well be yes. Rogge, known for her cerebral cuts and unapologetically human designs, is stepping into one of Italian fashion’s most experimental ateliers—and in doing so, she may be reshaping what leadership in fashion looks like.
A path paved in prints, proportion, and principle
Rogge’s story doesn’t begin with flash or fame. It begins in Belgium, at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, where she studied under Walter Van Beirendonck and learned fashion as both craft and concept. After graduation, she joined Marc Jacobs in New York, where she spent seven formative years understanding silhouette, rhythm, and the poetry of clothes.
She later returned to Belgium to lead womenswear at Dries Van Noten—another designer who favors subtle provocation over loud statements. There, Rogge refined her love for lush textures, intuitive layering, and narrative dressing. When she launched her eponymous label in 2020, it felt like a whisper in an industry screaming for attention. But the whisper carried: her clothes were intimate, imperfect, rebellious in their restraint.
By the time she won the prestigious ANDAM Prize in 2024, Rogge was already a name spoken with admiration in insider circles. Not loud. But respected.
Why Marni, why now?
Marni has always been a house for the artfully strange. Founded in 1994 by Consuelo Castiglioni, it stood apart from its Milanese counterparts with asymmetry, offbeat prints, and emotional volume. Francesco Risso, who helmed the brand from 2016 to 2024, brought theater and conceptual flamboyance to the house, earning cult status among Gen Z and the fashion avant-garde.
When OTB Group, Marni’s parent company, announced Rogge’s appointment in July 2025, the message was clear: the brand was not looking to pivot to spectacle. It was investing in substance. Rogge doesn’t design for virality. She designs for connection.
Her arrival also comes during a wider reshuffle in OTB’s creative leadership. With Simone Bellotti leading Jil Sander and Glenn Martens continuing his work at Maison Margiela, OTB is assembling a brain trust of thoughtful, detail-obsessed visionaries. Rogge fits perfectly among them: an architect of feeling more than flash.
Feminine intelligence, front and center
There’s a quiet power in the fact that Rogge is only the second woman ever to lead Marni, after Castiglioni herself. In an industry still dominated by male creative directors, her appointment is both refreshing and overdue.
But what sets her apart isn’t just her gender—it’s her gaze. Her work centers the wearer, rather than the ego of the designer. Her collections at her own label celebrated difference—not as marketing, but as baseline reality. Built by an all-women team, her brand was known for its inclusive sizing, its gentle anarchy, and its refusal to treat clothes as costumes.
At Marni, she’s expected to bring that same emotional intelligence. Not to soften the brand, but to deepen it. Rogge has always designed clothes you live in, not just pose in. And in that, she mirrors Castiglioni’s original ethos: artful fashion, rooted in everyday intimacy.
What the future might smell like
Rogge’s debut collection for Marni is set for Fall/Winter 2026, but the anticipation is already building. Will she keep the exuberant color palette that Marni is known for? Likely yes—but through her own filter. Expect sculptural knits with an intellectual twist. Tailoring that’s less aggressive, more poetic. Garments that carry memory and movement, not just trend.
Don’t expect shock. Expect depth.
If her past work is any clue, she’ll draw from vintage archives, music, outsider art, and instinct—not algorithms. Marni under Rogge might not be loud, but it will resonate. It will feel. In a world of frictionless fashion, that might be its boldest act.
A quieter kind of revolution
Rogge’s appointment isn’t just a headline—it’s a signal. That fashion doesn’t always need to be louder, younger, faster. Sometimes it needs to slow down, go inward, and trust in designers who think before they post.
She’s not here to chase trends. She’s here to build worlds.
And in choosing her, Marni is making a statement that goes beyond style: that emotion matters. That intellect matters. That the future of fashion may not lie in disruption, but in care.
So no—it’s not just a new chapter. It’s a new kind of authorship.
