Lucie de la Falaise (born 19 February 1973) is a Welsh-born French design consultant,[1][2] former model,[3][4][5][6] and socialite.[7]
Early life
Lucie le Bailly de la Falaise was born in Wales in 1973, and grew up on a sheep farm.[8][9][10][11] She is the younger of two children. When she was 15, she and her family moved to Fontainebleau, France.[9][10][11] Her mother, Louisa Ogilvy, is from Scotland,[10][12] and her father, the late Count Alexis le Bailly de la Falaise, was a furniture designer who was half French and half English.[10][11][13] His mother, Maxime de la Falaise, was a model in the 1950s,[5][9] while his sister, Loulou de la Falaise, was a muse to fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent.[5][9][10][13] The de la Falaise family are members of an aristocratic French clan whose actual surname is Le Bailly de La Falaise.
Career
De la Falaise began to model as a teenager, after having been discovered by Vogue magazine's creative director André Leon Talley, who was interviewing her aunt Loulou at the time.[9][11] De la Falaise and her brother Daniel were featured in a photo spread in the November 1988 issue of Vogue. In 1989, de la Falaise appeared in advertisements for L'Oréal and Givenchy. She later landed a contract with the Yves Saint Laurent fashion house to represent the label's skincare and cosmetics.[9][14]
In January 1990, at the age of 16, de la Falaise walked in her first Saint Laurent haute couture fashion show, where she wore a pink bridal gown at the end of the show.[9][12][15][16] She subsequently became a muse to Saint Laurent himself,[14][17] who cast her as the bride in his fashion shows from 1990 to 1994. De la Falaise also starred in the ad campaign for the Saint Laurent perfume called Paris.[10][18]
While working on a photoshoot with photographer Steven Meisel for Vogue Italia in the fall of 1992, de la Falaise was given a pixie haircut[10][19] by the hairstylist Garren.[12][20][21] Her short hair was even dubbed "Twiggy revisited".[22] From that point onward, her look became described as gamine[8][23][24][25] and she was referred to as the "gamine of the moment".[26] De la Falaise constituted part of the waif model trend of the mid-1990s.[27][28]
In July 1998, she made a cameo appearance as the bride at the end of Saint Laurent's fall/winter haute couture fashion show.[32]
After modeling, de la Falaise forayed into fashion styling. She designed a series of three handbags for the Schiaparelli fashion house, which were given the names "Selene, Soteria, and Selkie".[33][29][34] She has also worked in interior design.[29] She designed a picnic basket in collaboration with Dior for the grand opening of its flagship store in London.[35][36][37] In 2024, de la Falaise was named ambassador of the Sisleÿa skin care line from the brand Sisley.[38]
Personal life
In 1992, de la Falaise met Marlon Richards, the son of The Rolling Stones bandmember Keith Richards and Anita Pallenberg, through a blind date arranged by Pallenberg who had first noticed de la Falaise on the October 1992 cover of Vogue Italia.[10][11] De la Falaise and Richards were married in 1994 and have 3 children.[10][11] Their daughter, Ella Richards, became a model.[4][11][16]
^ abDupuis, Marion (21 April 2015). "Lucie de la Falaise, instants de grâce" [Lucie de la Falaise, moments of grace]. Madame Figaro (in French). Retrieved 26 July 2022.
