Carlyne Cerf de Dudzeele

Carlyne Cerf de Dudzeele is a noted French stylist, art director and photographer.^[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.^[4] She has one sister, Géraldine Cerf de Dudzeele who became a clinical psychologist and a half-sister, Marie-Pierre Saville (b. 1959), a lecturer and a designer.^[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.^[8] Natalia was former wife of Prince Mirko of Montenegro, brother-in-law of King Vittorio Emanuele III of Italy, whose grandson Nicholas, Prince of Montenegro is the Head of the Petrović-Njegoš dynasty and the current claimant to the throne of the Kingdom of Montenegro.^[9][10]

Her father made her move to Paris in the 1960s and began her career interning at Depeche Mode and Marie Claire. 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.^[17]

Aside from the press industry, the stylist largely defined the Versace look in the 1990s, closely working with Gianni Versace,^[16] Azzedine Alaïa, and Karl Lagerfeld upon his arrival at Chanel.

De Dudzeele has stated she does not follow trends and says that she always creates her own fashion.^[18] To her, simplicity is what defines chic.^[1]

In October 2013, de Dudzeele was named editor at large of Lucky Magazine.^[14]

In her video series J'Adore, she says that she has loved leopard all her life and that she also loves fake fur because she prefers animals to humans.^[19] The last episode of the series was uploaded on 4 June 2014; it was cancelled because she was too busy to continue shooting videos.^[20]

In February 2024, de Dudzeele was the chief stylist for the debut of Japanese musician Yoshiki's high fashion line Maison Yoshiki Paris at Milan Fashion Week.^[21]