Her mother Ann Dearsley Vernon, was a British civil rights activist and art historian, and her father was an American pilot and inventor.
[3] In 1990 she graduated cum laude from Virginia Commonwealth University with a degree in Art History and a double minor in Religious Studies and Goldsmithing.
[12] In 2006, Vernon worked with Los Angeles-based photographer Jeff Burton in the museum house of Carlo Mollino in Turin, Italy.
[15] In November 2012, Vernon designed the Origin Chair, a functional sculpture carved in statuary marble from Monte Altissimo, Italy.
[18][19] In 2017, Vernon unveils her Boudoir Box (1999-2000, leather case and sterling silver objects) for the first time to the general public as part of the Medusa exhibition at the City of Paris Museum of Modern Art.