Duong studied with the Franchetti Academy of Classical Dance and Tessa Beaumont until she embarked on a modeling career—being photographed for Vogue, among other publications.

She then was featured in numerous editorials including Vogue (Italian, American, French, German and British), Harper's Bazaar, and Elle.

Around that time, Duong met Dolce & Gabbana in Milan, John Galliano in London, and Sybilla in Spain, and was in their first runway shows.

They included Yohji Yamamoto, Moschino, Isaac Mizrahi, Christian Dior, Donna Karan, Karl Lagerfeld, and Geoffrey Beene.

– Provincial Museum of Modern Art, Ostende, Belgium[15] which led to an exhibition at Galerie Jérôme de Noirmont in Paris in 1999 with more than 65 Self-portraits on display[15][18] followed by a show at the Tony Shafrazi Gallery in New York in 2000.

"(...) her paintings expose an unexpected, unglamorous, intimate relationship with her body (...) Duong's paintings should be viewed as contributions to a different genre – they belong alongside the work of women such as Dora Maar, Anaïs Nin, and Frida Kahlo, artists who compellingly exposed interior worlds whose beauty, intelligence, and character inspired creativity, both in themselves and in others.

Long before digital self-images—or 'selfies'—became virtually ubiquitous, Duong, like many figurative painters, decided to make herself the subject of an ongoing series of self-portraits.

Duong's latest series of paintings, done over the past two years, shows the artist in a variety of poses, from provocatively trapped in the kitchen in couture underwear, to nakedly framed in a bathtub.

[27] Duong has been involved in relationships with artist Julian Schnabel[42] and auction house owner Simon de Pury.

[citation needed] In June 2006, Duong married Barton Hubbard Quillen, an architect whose maternal grandmother was the third wife of financier Thomas Mellon Evans Jr., owner of 1981 Kentucky Derby winner Pleasant Colony.