The gowns were amazing things to behold, and highlighted the artisanal craft of those who had sewn them. But they also reinforced the unfortunate stereotype of Chinese design as Orientalizing and literally unwearable by a moving human. As a helper mopped the brow of a frozen-in-place model, the inescapable impression was of 1970s-era Woody Allen doing his version of Fellini.

Into this scene strode Chua, resplendent in dinner jacket, velvet bow tie and silk pumps, leading Du Juan by the arm. Du stood apart like the celebrity that she is to would-be Chinese fashionistas. Fans begged for snapshots, and were accommodated. One New York photographer gruffly demanded to shoot her — then asked her who she was. Meanwhile, Chua took up his role as the most sought-after person of the hundreds there. “You have to meet my good friends,” he said again and again as he introduced me to three tables’ worth of his smart-looking, friendly and impressively loyal cohort. Yue-Sai Kan, the evening’s host, is a trailblazing Chinese luxury entrepreneur who built her Yue-Sai cosmetics brand into a national powerhouse before selling it to L’Oréal. When she got to the dais in the ballroom, she thanked Chua — even before she mentioned the Chinese ambassador.

The point of the evening was to bring China to New York Fashion Week — to initiate in reverse the process that Chua has pioneered of selling Western luxury to the East. What Chua does for clients like Giorgio Armani and Burberry is not only to shape their strategy for introducing themselves to China, but also to make that introduction himself through the full panoply of brand shaping: events, partnerships, people, installations, images and aesthetics. When Phillip Lim wanted to stage an event for the fifth anniversary of his brand in one of the guard towers protecting the Forbidden City, he called Chua, who made it happen. “It was a really big moment for us,” Lim says — and an astonishing show of can-do effectiveness in an intensely bureaucratic country.

Chua set up an “Art of the Trench” exhibit at the Burberry store in Shanghai earlier this year that included photographs of 50 Chinese celebrities wearing the iconic coats around the city, another instance of his painstaking work at making connections — and delivering on them. His 10th anniversary bash for Alber Elbaz and Lanvin in Beijing featured the Chinese electro-pop diva Shang Wenjie, who has become a key symbol of fashion in Chinese popular culture.

Although United States-based designers of Chinese descent, like Wu, Lim and Alexander Wang, have already succeeded in both worlds, the Chinese fashion night suggests that getting less cosmopolitan Chinese designers recognized in the West will tax Chua’s considerable talents. For both sides of the cultural divide, Chua is the indispensable man: the Virgil who will help them avoid the pitfalls of the inferno and point them toward commercial heaven.

This unique role puts Chua at the leading edge of the future Chinese economy. Having exported its way to growth for 30 years, China cannot keep growing at steep rates unless it develops domestic markets by turning its hard-working, money-saving citizens into capitalists. In a historic twist that would have horrified Mao, the future survival of the Chinese Communist Party depends on the cultural struggle to make comrades into consumers. To do that requires re-education in its way more sophisticated than anything the Party has ever known. It needs Melvin Chua.

The day after the Fashion Week events, Chua arrives for breakfast at the Standard hotel in a dark sweater, leather shorts and a fleecy hat with piggy ears on top. Once there, he refuses food, chain-smokes furtively in the outdoor garden and acknowledges a string of well-wishers between texts and e-mails. He is direct, if a little opaque, about his process: “I’ve been doing this for so long,” he says, “that I know intuitively what will appeal to a Chinese audience.” He lights up when we are joined by his best friend, Wen Zhou, the co-founder of 3.1 Phillip Lim, and her 7-year-old son, Zen.