In the Indonesia Now show featuring 5 famous designers from Indonesia at New York Fashion Week Spring - Summer 2025, Nguyen Hung Phuc was invited to the position of show Director, catwalk director.
Director Nguyen Hung Phuc said that this was his fifth time coming to New York Fashion Week but his first time directly taking on this important position of the show. As show director, he is responsible for arranging sound, lighting, and coordinating guest seating.
Besides, he also works directly with modeling agencies to guide models and set them up for catwalks.
Nguyen Hung Phuc said that Indonesia Now's show gathered 5 designers, so he had to work with each designer, each stylist, and each jewelry designer for each collection.
As a director, he coordinates and harmonizes all stages, adjusts lighting, color tones, and background music for each collection, then works with foreign photographers and filmmakers to select the most perfect images.
To have a 20-25 minute show, Nguyen Hung Phuc and his crew had to go to New York 4 days in advance to train some models from Indonesia. After that, he and the models tried on the costumes and did a final casting to come up with a costume plan for each model.
After the show ended, Nguyen Hung Phuc breathed a sigh of relief because of the success of his "debut" as a catwalk director at New York Fashion Week.
Besides the advantages at work, Nguyen Hung Phuc said he encountered many difficulties when working as a catwalk director for an international designer.
"Even though I had experience in domestic fashion, when I went abroad I was almost unknown. Model management companies didn't know who I was, so it was difficult for them to trust me and follow my instructions.
At first, there were arguments between the two sides, and it was inevitable that they felt uncomfortable. However, I am very grateful to the Indonesian designer for trusting me and fighting for me to have full authority to make decisions and show my full potential," said director Nguyen Hung Phuc.
The language barrier is also one of the things that put pressure on the male director. Although he graduated with a BA in English, Nguyen Hung Phuc said he still had difficulty grasping the entire ideas of the crew when they used a lot of technical terms and spoke too quickly.
He also had to use all his sensitivity to convey his ideas to the models and crew clearly.
Nguyen Hung Phuc has many years of experience organizing and implementing Asian Kids Fashion Week - a fashion week for children known in many Asian countries. He also takes on the role of catwalk director for many major programs such as the Fashion Voyage show or personal shows of Cong Tri, Adrian Anh Tuan, Le Thanh Hoa, Hoang Hai...
