Phuong My

Phuong My became Vietnam’s first designer to show at New York’s fashion week. This is very exciting to me, because 1) I love fashion and 2) I think it really says something important about a potential path for Vietnam, if it chooses to go this way.

About Phuong My: She is based in Ho Chi Minh City, born in 1988 (young!) and graduated from the Academy Of Art at the University San Francisco. She is known for impeccable tailoring, striking silhouettes and beautiful feminine details. She was invited to show at NY Fashion Week for the first time this year after opening the Vancouver fashion week last year. I couldn’t really find any reviews of the show, but I personally found it exciting. See the pics below that I took from Phuong My’s website.

More importantly, this is a Vietnamese company that is actively competing on the world stage, at the highest level (or second- or third-highest, depending on whether you think Paris, Milan and/or London are more important fashion shows - personally, I think NY Fashion Week is the edgiest and most open of the big four). The label already distributes in more than 20 countries,

If Vietnamese companies are going to grow, they need to start competing as aggressively as possible globally. And it is going to require skilled workers, something that Vietnam needs desperately, preferably by growing them “in-house.” Right now the textile market in Vietnam is basically unskilled, with a few innovations coming from foreigners (see my post dated January 17 and titled: “A quick break from hotels: environmental investments.”

So Phuong My is a great example of a local Vietnamese (with some training from abroad) able to grow a business that can compete internationally. What a story! The only thing that makes me hesitant us that Phuong My is not really upgrading local talents as much as she can, because she purchases her more luxurious fabrics from abroad, even though Vietnam has a very large textile business, as indicated in this article.

Rather than accepting the limitations of local fabrics available to other local designers in Vietnam, Phuong My established a very clear strategy for her own brand. PHUONG MY’s fabric production is entirely outsourced
to select partners in Paris, Milan and Hong Kong, thus providing the optimum blend of both materials and exclusivity that has proven to be successful for the brand.

Hopefully over time, Phuong My will source materials locally and then export all of these beautiful creations abroad. I can’t wait. This is what all Vietnamese companies should be shooting for.

All pictures from the Phuong My website.