FEMALE LEADS: Meryll Rogge was named the designer of the 12 months on the 2024 Belgian Style Awards on Thursday in Brussels.
“Meryll has made it onto the worldwide scene whereas remaining herself. She creates gender-fluid ready-to-wear, all the time listening to right this moment’s world,” stated the jury, led by development forecaster, editor and curator Lidewij Edelkoort and Philip Fimmano, development analyst and marketing consultant.
Ghent-born Rogge is the primary lady to obtain the excellence, awarded in earlier years to Anthony Vaccarello, Glenn Martens, who received in 2022 and 2018, Nicolas Di Felice, Christian Wijnants and Raf Simons.
A 2008 graduate of Antwerp’s Royal Academy of Nice Arts who dreamed of being an illustrator as a toddler, she swapped paint for textile swatches when shifting to New York.
After working her approach as much as lead designer at Marc Jacobs over seven years, she was again in Antwerp working for Dries van Noten as head of ladies’s design in 2014 earlier than going solo in 2020. The next 12 months, she was named rising designer of the 12 months on the Belgian Style Awards.
A number of of Rogge’s items have been acquired just lately by the MoMu Antwerp museum and Brussels’ Style & Lace Museum.
Girls took the lion’s share of awards this 12 months.
Taking dwelling the jury prize was veteran designer Marina Yee, who was a part of the group of Royal Academy graduates often known as the Antwerp Six alongside Walter Van Beirendonck, Ann Demeulemeester, Dries Van Noten, Dirk Van Saene and Dirk Bikkembergs.
Having relaunched her eponymous label in 2022, she counts over 40 stockists worldwide together with Dover Avenue Market New York and its counterpart in Los Angeles, Ssense and SKP in Beijing.
In the meantime, Marie Adam-Leenaerdt was named rising expertise of the 12 months. The La Cambre graduate launched her model in 2023 and has been displaying on the official Paris Style Week calendar because the spring 2024 season. This 12 months, she was additionally nominated for the ANDAM Prize and the LVMH Prize for Younger Designers.
The second version of the BFA equipment prize went to Paris-based Stéphanie D’heygere, who received the jury prize final 12 months.
Along with her six-year-old eponymous label, the place she unfurls her concept that any object can change into an adjunct, the Maison Margiela and Dior alumna has created jewellery for Jean Paul Gaultier, Jil Sander and Martens for each his Y/Mission and Diesel collections. She’s additionally collaborated with manufacturers from Longchamp and Gentlemonster to Medea and Vaquera.
Different winners of the 12 months are textile designer Daniel Henry, named skilled of the 12 months; sustainable trend workshop RE Antwerp, based by designer Tim Van Steenbergen and journalist Ruth Goossens, as changemaker of the 12 months, and La Cambre’s Célestin Verheyden as most promising graduate. Household-owned label 4 Roses was named model of the 12 months.
The jury led by Edelkoort and Fimmano included 2023 equipment award winner Sarah Levy; Elisa De Wyngaert, curator of the MoMu Antwerp museum; Eve Demoen, curator of Modemuseum Hasselt; Nicolas Lor, curator of latest trend on the Style & Lace Museum; Lena-Sophie Röper, common supervisor designer and luxurious at Zalando; Raïssa Verhaeghe, founder and chief govt officer of trend consultancy Raver; and Serge Carreira, head of the rising manufacturers initiative on the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode, in addition to journalists and trend editors.
The awards have been organized since 2017 by Flanders DC, a nonprofit group launched by the Flemish authorities to advertise the design and trend sector; the MAD Brussels trend and design platform; Wallonie-Bruxelles Design Mode, which helps the internationalization of labels based mostly in Brussels and the French-speaking Wallonia area, and publications Weekend Knack and Le Vif Weekend.
