Carlyne Cerf de Dudzeele

[1] Carlyne Cerf de Dudzeele grew up in La Garde-Freinet,[2] near Saint-Tropez, in the south of France, as well as in Paris,[3] where she received a strict education and observed the mix of haute couture with everyday items that was typical of that area.

She says that her beautiful childhood memories were thanks to her mother, Anne-Marie Errembault de Dudzeele (1922-1984), member of the Belgian nobility, who was "the most unimaginable woman" she ever knew, married in 1946 to French Corporal Philippe Jean Louis Cerf (1923-1990), her first husband.

[5][6][7] Anne-Marie was the daughter of Count Gaston Hugues Errembault de Dudzeele (1877–1961) and his wife, Princess Natalija Petrovic-Njegosh, maternal descendant of the House of Obrenović, once ruling family of the Kingdom of Serbia.

Later, starting in 1977, she worked at French Elle for 10 years before moving to New York in 1985 and becoming the fashion director of Vogue US,[11][12] where she styled Anna Wintour's first cover in 1988, in which Israeli model Michaela Bercu was dressed in a Christian LaCroix couture top with a jeweled cross[3] and Guess jeans.

[13][14] She worked closely with prominent fashion photographers of the era: Irving Penn,[15] Richard Avedon, Helmut Newton, Paolo Roversi,[16] Patrick Demarchelier,[15] and her longtime collaborator, Steven Meisel.