She spent her first pay cheque on Marni shoes. Now she runs the house

Marni chief executive Stefano Rosso installed Meryll Rogge at the head of the brand in the middle of the industry’s creative reshuffle. It is easy for a debutant to get lost in that noise — Rogge did not. Her first runway collection for the 32-year-old label, owned by the OTB group, was warmly received by critics: for its fidelity to the aesthetic of founder Consuelo Castiglioni and, at the same time, for beginning a new chapter.

At the Vogue Business summit in Chantilly, Rogge and Rosso discussed what comes next for the house.

The conversation opened with a question about what it means to be a woman designer — after a review that said that “with Marni back in the hands of a woman, it feels as though the universe is karmically putting things in order”. “Let’s start with the hard question,” Rogge laughed. “I think in our case what matters is that the brand’s founder was a woman, and that the label, as I understand it, grew out of a desire to make clothes for herself.”

“For us, talent has no gender,” Rosso added. “Talent is talent, and we were looking for the best talent to take Marni into its next creative chapter. That it is a woman is probably added value: we very much wanted attention in this period to return to women’s ready-to-wear, which has been faltering a little at the company in recent years. So the choice was a natural one — but above all because we saw an astonishing creative talent in Meryll.”

Then there is the matter of the first pay cheque. “I started my career in 2008 at Marc Jacobs in New York, and with my very first pay cheque, instead of paying my rent, I went to a store in upper Manhattan and bought a pair of Marni shoes I had been eyeing for months. It was the first purchase of my life with my first pay cheque.”

On the archive, the designer is cautious: “We are interested in working from the spirit of Marni: what the brand means, what its values are and how to carry it forward into a new context, a new world. The focus will be on the value system rather than on the archive itself — though the archive will always play a part.”

Rosso puts it more briefly: “Two words: contemporary elegance. We believe very much in a point of view that goes slightly outside the lines. Our brand book has an essence phrase — ‘colour outside the lines’ — and I think it describes Marni perfectly.” He recalls how it all began: “When the company started, the moment around it was one of fitted dresses and dark colours, and Marni interpreted contemporary elegance differently — through colour-blocking and geometry. We think we should be giving customers a refined elegance that can be worn at any moment of the day. It is not only for special occasions, it is for everyday.”