Jamaica Puts a Different Face on the Runways
“My thought was always to give young Jamaican kids the chance to dream and see a world they may never had known existed and a chance to be world phenoms
that they may have thought impossible by their circumstances,” Mr. Peters said.
“I never knew about modeling, I never thought about modeling or talked about it when they brought it to me
that I have a nice style to be a model,” said Mr. Steele, who on a busy day during high season here might earn 15,000 Jamaican dollars (or $115) selling coconuts.
“And they immediately booked her for the 2017 campaign.”
When they called me for Saint Laurent, my life just changed.”
As it happens, “changing lives and expanding horizons” is both the mission
and the vaguely homiletic slogan of Saint International, a small, independent modeling agency in Kingston founded by Deiwght Peters close to two decades ago.
From time to time, a Jamaican star like Grace Jones shot onto the scene,
but not until Saint International was there anything one might credibly term a Jamaican modeling industry.
I’m going to send her right back,’ ” said Mr. Peters, whose belief in the young model was rewarded when
she embarked on a tour of the European circuit and immediately booked a runway exclusive for Gucci.
