Congratulations are in order: Meryll Rogge married her partner this past May in the same small fishing village, Cadaqués, 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 options: 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 patchworked denim jacket and full skirt made, the designer explained, 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, duchesse d’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 like a fitted corset top, an overskirt, and removable collars on a country gentleman-style check coat with outsized 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!”
