Meryll Rogge: The Books That Made Me

As she launches her collaboration with Brussels-based Saint Martin Bookshop, Meryll Rogge reflects on the books that shape her creative world

“I don’t have much time to read,” Meryll Rogge tells me on a call as she stands in front of a bookshelf stacked to the brim. The Belgian designer has plenty to keep her occupied. Since founding her eponymous label in 2020, Rogge has developed an eclectic approach to womenswear, interpreting the everyday wardrobe through an offbeat, playful lens. With previous stints at Marc Jacobs and Dries Van Noten, she is now balancing her own label with the role of creative director at Marni, a mantel she took up in 2025. Reading has become something of a luxury, reserved for “less chaotic times”.

Still, to reduce Rogge’s relationship with books to the novels that occupy summer days would be misguided. Her recent collaboration with Brussels bookshop Saint Martin offers a glimpse into that long-standing fascination. The project invites a rotating cast of friends of the house to curate capsule collections of one-of-a-kind books – independent publishing rarities of the kind Saint Martin has become synonymous with – set to accompany Rogge’s seasonal releases. For its first edition, ceramist and collaborator Elise Gettliffe, whose natural-glazed pottery explores the imperfections of traditional craft, takes the lead. “Elise has been a good friend since my Royal Academy days – she’s an artist now – and over the years she’s helped with our show installations,” Rogge explains. Gettliffe brings together 20 books – including Studio Mumbai’s Recollections and Martine Syms’ Boon – that draw on a fascination with everyday life akin to Rogge’s. 

“When I began working, the internet existed but books were still law, and I started to understand them as a medium that could inspire me,” she says. In her early career, hours spent photocopying books began to infiltrate her creative vision, finding their way into collections like Autumn/Winter 2025, which was inspired by Gordon Matta-Clark’s Walls Paper. “For my brand, books are an essential way to understand our world,” she explains. Yet their influence reaches far beyond her work, shaping the way she sees and relates to those around her.

Across art, film and literature, Rogge finds herself drawn to the mundane – what she calls “the common thread”. “That’s why I like autobiographies. People who live extraordinary lives are always seen through the big picture, but I find comfort in their daily challenges.” This sensibility carries through to her selection for AnOther, a collection of books she describes as being as “fragmented as life itself”.

The Coats of James Castle: A Plane of Singularity by James Castle, 2026

“My husband has a publishing house called Primitive Books. This is one of its most recent publications. It is around the work of American artist James Castle. Castle was from a rural and isolated area of Idaho and was completely self-taught. His work is so vast but the book focuses on his coats. For many years he used materials from his surroundings to create these sculptures of pieces of clothes. Truly an astonishing and beautiful universe. It’s inspiring because the art came from a need to express or to create. Which makes it so pure. It’s shedding a different light on an everyday object.”

One for All, All for One by Gordon Matta-Clark, 1979 

“I discovered Gordon Matta-Clark in my Art History class in Antwerp. It was an introduction to a whole new way of thinking about art. It took me a few years to grasp his work. Later in life, I went deeper into it and found it incredibly raw. I am drawn to work that is conceptually complex but still harmonious. When you see documentaries and interviews with him, you can see the hard labour behind it. He was hand-sculpting these buildings, it was deafening noise but, when you look at the final product, it’s almost light. Another one of his works, Walls Papers, was an inspiration for a past collection.”

Donald Judd Furniture by Judd Foundation, 2024

“Donald Judd is another artist whose life fascinates me just as much as the work. I’ve been to Marfa two or three times. All the houses, the furniture, the office spaces have so many layers, so many stories. There’s a purity in his work. I think about his furniture a lot, I hope to one day own one of his pieces. There’s a rigour in his life mission that I find inspiring. His personal and professional life were not separate, it was all part of one big life.”

Take a closer look at five of Donald Judd’s most enduring designs here

The Catcher in the Rye by J D Salinger, 1951

“I heard about Catcher in the Rye for years before I actually read it. It’s one of those classics. But the first time I opened it I was probably in my mid-twenties living in New York. Sometimes literature can be intimidating. You’re afraid of a certain book because it might be too intense, you’re scared of what will be on the next page. This was the complete opposite – it was a page-turner. I had never experienced this way of writing before, it’s almost energising. There was something really moving about living in New York, where the story takes place, and reading this coming-of-age story. It was such a specific time in my life, and having the book gave me something that I can’t forget.”

A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole, 1980

“There’s this one Anglo-Saxon bookshop in Paris that I went to for research. The wonderful person working there gave me a few books to read. This was one of them – there are, of course, so many more, but you gave me a very hard challenge to narrow this list down to five books – but this guy somehow completely got my taste and what I wanted to read. Confederacy of Dunces is incredible because the author John Kennedy Toole was only published posthumously. After it was released it won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. In a weird way it speaks to my interest in biographies. This was an author who couldn’t get published, who nobody took seriously. Only after his death, that happened by choice, was his talent discovered. It’s horrible – actually, it’s infuriating. The novel’s main character, Ignatius, reminds me of Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm, because it can actually be quite frustrating to read. Sometimes while reading I had to close the book because I was so annoyed and just pick it up the next day. But that to me is a sign of a well-written book. It’s pure chaos.”