Brands have auras. They have karmas, too, and past lives that outlast their creators and the designers who simply take the helm for a season or two. Marni’s aura has been artfully offbeat from day one, its idiosyncratic yet disciplined spirit steeped in Milanese modernism. Founded by Consuelo Castiglioni and reinterpreted through Francesco Risso’s expressive tenure, the house now swings back into a woman’s hands—which, karmically speaking, feels like the universe tidying up.
“I’ve been a Marni fan since I was a teenager; it has truly shaped my vision of fashion,” said Meryll Rogge, the young Belgian designer now handed the keys to the beloved house. And beloved Marni most certainly is: a label whose feminine charge and cultivated quirk have long magnetized intelligent, creatively inclined women. Rogge was plainly among their number. Her bond with the brand feels personal, which makes her grasp of any Marni-festation both immediate and instinctive, less studied homework, more native fluency. There’s also a neat symmetry between her own namesake line, which she continues to design, and Marni: a shared appetite for artistic wit, an expressive off-beat sensibility, and a clear-eyed respect for that most unglamorous of virtues, the “wearability factor.”
The connection was further underscored by the ritual every designer must eventually officiate: the archival deep dive. There, buried on some long-forgotten hard drive (and unfortunately absent from the Vogue Runway feed), she unearthed the first Marni collections. What was striking is how it all began: white, black, brown, and gray—absolutely no color. This was 1993, and for the first three seasons there were no prints, no embellishments, no distractions. It was purely about materials and beautiful shapes. That almost un-Marni restraint resurfaced in Rogge’s debut today, where muted chromatic tones, offset by abundant black, were punctuated by the occasional jolt of pastel or color, used sparingly enough to make the point.
She also revisited later collections she loved—especially around ’96 and into the late ’90s and early 2000s, “which still look remarkably fresh,” she said. “We pulled pieces from the archives and tried them on, asking what still resonates today.” For Rogge, it ultimately came down to proportion. Those small ’90s coats feel distinctly modern: a fitted shoulder, a gently nipped waist, a proper knee-length skirt. “We immediately clicked with a skirt that sits slightly low on the hips,” she noted. Once that slender, tidy silhouette locked into place, the rest was a matter of variation. Multiple iterations marched down the runway today with the conviction of a designer who has located solid ground, and seems ready to build the next Marni-tude from it.
Rogge’s version veered slightly punk, reflecting the founder’s aversion for anything too pretty, too girly, or merely cute. “We toughened everything up a bit,” Rogge said. Hardware appeared throughout—functional, but also decorative, turning fastenings and studs into design gestures. Furry textures, long a Marni signature, were reimagined in shearling and goat short coats that felt tactile and instinctual. Key Marni prints were also revisited: stripes were brought forward, while dots returned as large discs loosely attached to tops and skirts, jingling with every step. Graphic florals remained sharp and modernist—no sugar, no flirtation, no softness. Decoration stayed artistic, maintaining that hallucinatory Marni streak that has always made the house so magnetic.
Rogge noted that revisiting some foundational codes sent subtle signals that true Marni devotees, those fluent in the brand’s visual language, would immediately recognize. Younger audiences might miss the reference, but she observed that the expression still reads as fresh today. “The Marni woman is strong and self-directed: someone with a career, a family, friends, and a genuine engagement with art and culture,” she remarked. The same applies to the Marni man. He’s interested in fashion, she said, but not defined by it—someone living his life in Marni, rather than posing in it. For Rogge, it’s these principles that keep the house culturally compelling. “I always say the best person to do Consuelo’s Marni is Consuelo,” she said. “This was always going to be something else—not just because I’m a different person, but because, well, it’s 2026.”