Meryll Rogge, Marni’s New Designer, Launches Knitwear Brand B.B. Wallace

Last week, over eggs and housemade granola at a biodynamic farm in the fields outside Amsterdam, the designers Meryll Rogge and Sarah Allsopp introduced their knitwear line B.B. Wallace, a seasonless, deeply artisanal ode to natural materials and Anglo-Saxon comfort. Picture: a deconstructed baby blue cardigan-cum-jumper, raw edges unwinding at one corner; double-face triangle scarves in gentle yellows and spring greens; and a radiant pink double-knit cardigan, all surrounded by grazing cows and wildflowers. The pieces lean into the aesthetics of the English countryside while putting color and shape—classic, with an ever-esoteric twist—front and center. As we walk past a barn of sheep nestling in the hay, the restaurant-farm’s head chef quips, “Those are next year’s sweaters.”

B.B. Wallace is the latest offering from a very busy Rogge, who took home the ANDAM Grand Prize for her namesake, 2020-founded label this past June and was named the new creative director of Marni in July. She met English designer Allsopp when they were both working under Marc Jacobs during his years heading Louis Vuitton alongside his own brand. Allsopp lives in the Dutch capital—hence the brand launch at Amsterdam Fashion Week, which ran earlier in September. Time and again, the two have returned to each other when developing projects. “Whenever there’s a need for knitting and designing, Meryll gives me a call,” says Allsopp.

The new brand came from a single sweater the pair designed for Meryll Rogge with a double-face cashmere interior and a Merino and Shetland outside. “It’s a sweater that I have been wearing for years from October to March every single day, and this poor cardigan never really got the attention it deserved because of course the rest of the line is quite vibrant, [full of] prints, colors,” says Rogge. “People always look at the shiny stuff rather than this beautiful new take on a heritage sweater. I felt like it was deserving of its own voice. To be honest, it’s been boiling inside of me for years.”

The standout knit, named The Wylie, gives way to the warm, distinctly comforting range. It shows one vein of Rogge’s talents.

For the Ghent, Belgium-born designer, the trip to the industry’s center was never obvious. “I didn’t even know that was a profession when I was young. So I had to discover this at quite a late age,” she admits over Zoom from her home studio, a 19th-century barn located near her birthplace. “It was something that I had a little bit persevering myself,” Rogge says. “When I was 15, I got into fashion and that never left me.”

She read law in university before making the leap to design, entering the Royal Academy where she studied under Walter Van Beirendonck before moving to New York to work for Jacobs. After seven years at Marc Jacobs, Rogge moved back to Europe to head womenswear at Dries van Noten. She launched her namesake line in 2020, a richly eccentric offering that feels both cerebral and instinctive, bringing together surprising colors, off-kilter patterns, and vintage notes. A red silk glove that extended into a boa was an early piece to garner virality; her spring 2025 collection, which included dresses she designed for her own wedding, felt like an exercise in the pleasures of design—one that also signaled what we can gain from having women at the helm. (Chloë Sevigny is a fan, and so is Rihanna.)

Now, Rogge is around the corner from her Marni debut. “I can’t say a word,” she affirms. But she does say the line between the brands she designs for is strong. “That’s why we created such a clear and very defined image for B.B. Wallace: It’s very much about the focus on natural materials, interesting shapes, and the best knitwear you could get with a very Anglo-Saxon language to it. It exists outside this fashion week frame. We’re interested in presenting in different ways like we did last week,” says Rogge. “There’s a lot of creativity to be had in that external world.”

For the Meryll brand, it’s very different,” she continues. “Whereas B.B. Wallace is more about longevity and transcending time, Meryll is very much fashion-driven. It’s about creating a new image every season, or at least an evolution of the image that is quite intense. It’s portraying a very personal image of what fashion can be.”