Mother, daughter join forces in Gucci ad
Duyen Nguyen, a dentist and former Houston Chronicle Best Dressed honoree, wasn’t sure the Gucci ad that she and daughter Chloé posed for would ever see the light of day. The luxury fashion house flew them to Milan in December for the gig; the premise was to cast mother-daughter lookalikes in a campaign timed for Mother’s Day in the U.K., which fell on March 10.
“That came and went. Then April came and went. I was worried they weren’t going to use our pictures,” Duyen told the Chronicle.
She and husband Marc Nguyen have four daughters. Their eldest Misha, 31, used to model, though she now works as a trauma surgical intensive care nurse in Harris County. Twins Chloé and Lauren, who turn 26 next week, currently live in New York, where they are signed with agencies in Milan, Paris and Los Angeles. The youngest daughter, Anaïs, 21, is signed with Ford Models.
Duyen describes the Gucci ad campaign as a whirlwind. She says that Susannah Hooker, owner of Kollektiv Mgmt where her twins are signed, had been trying to get “mom” to join the agency for years. Hooker thought she had “the look.”
One day last winter, Chloé asked her mom to send Hooker recent photos of herself.
“When it comes to Susannah, I don’t ask questions,” Duyen said. “I found a couple from an event and a Christmas party. That was a Wednesday afternoon. By Thursday morning at 6 a.m., Chloé woke me up to say the photos were sent to Milan for a Gucci ad campaign.”
She was cautiously optimistic. “My kids have been in this business for a long time. Sometimes you don’t get the job, so I didn’t want to get my hopes up.”
Chloé told her mom there was a 95% chance they wouldn’t book the job.
“Within an hour, when I was brushing my teeth, she called back to say, ‘Oh my god, Mommy, you got it!’ ” Duyen recalled.
She flew to New York on Sunday, and by Monday, she and Chloé had arrived in Milan.
They went for a fitting on Tuesday — Duyen said she tried to play it cool. Her daughters had worked with the Gucci team before. They’d cautioned her that nothing was for certain until the photo shoot’s official call sheet, with a call time, was sent out. Luckily, Duyen’s name was on it.
“The next day we shot and all that. I remember we had to wait around until everything was done, and everything was perfect,” she said. Then crickets.
For months, Duyen wondered about the photos they’d taken. In April, one of her dental assistants swore she’d seen an ad campaign with Duyen and Chloé on her Facebook feed.
The following morning, by chance, a Gucci email with the subject line “Love Letters to Mom” landed in her inbox.
“Of course, the agency (Kollektiv Mgmt) signed me right away. I’m now officially on Models.com,” Duyen said. “I’m 63, I love fashion, I love beautiful things. And the timing of this is just perfect.”