The Caribbean’s global fashion powerbroker

Savvily building an entrepreneurial empire one major model after another, Deiwght Peters has developed an enviable credibility in the multi-billion-dollar fashion industry that stretches far beyond Jamaica’s shores.

The SAINT International chief executive officer, who traded in a career in banking to launch his own boutique modelling agency a quarter century ago, today is a Caribbean powerbroker in direct contact with influential names connected to Gucci, Balenciaga, Valentino, Chanel and Fendi.

Just last year alone, Peters had a year to remember, which in itself was impressive given decades-plus of watershed moments aplenty that preceded it.

Consider British heritage luxury house Burberry’s Summer 2024 advertising campaign lensed on The Rock, for which Peters was called upon to cast four SAINT models.

Then, the man — long hailed a Midas-touch modelmaker — launched three new faces, Dru Campbell, Jessie Craig and Sanique Dill with exclusive debuts for Italian fashion houses Prada, Valentino and Miu Miu on the runways of Milan and Paris Fashion Weeks.

The fresh-faced trio would land subsequent global advertising campaigns, separately, for the high-end European brands.

He is sitting cross-legged in the lobby of the AC Hotel Kingston for this Sunday Gleaner late-morning interview, on the eve of his agency’s Fashion Face of the Caribbean and Avant Garde Designer of the Year competitions that were hosted on Saturday night inside the hotel’s Rocksteady ballroom.

Asked what he identifies as the formula to his success, Peters thoughtfully muses. There are, after all, scores of models, countless campaigns, and magazine covers and editorials to assess at this very moment.

He told The Sunday Gleaner, “Running a business requires unrelenting focus and believing in the power of faith. It has meant being fearless and to keep challenging myself and never being complacent”.

Looking back, he marvels now at how much his agency has amassed, 25 years later.

The most gratifying, he said, is “the global access I was able to create for my models from wherever they are by being consistent with the type of faces I was introducing and how they are developed and positioned. I have always approached the business as such”.

That dogged determination led a shrewd Peters to have long broadened his trained eye for model talent outside Jamaica to Martinique, Guadeloupe, Trinidad, Guyana, and also continental Africa, where he has signed Nigerians and Cameroonians.

EXPANDING REACH

Among the blazing-bright successes attained through the expansive search: Chloe and Louis Vuitton campaigns for Nigerian native Tomiwa and a YSL make-up campaign for Martiniquan Aurelie Giraud.

The SAINT boss, already a familiar name on the lips and email contacts of fashion decision makers in the traditional fashion capitals of London, New York and Paris, has inched his way into favour elsewhere across the world too.

“Strategically, I am extending the market reach by expanding relationships for SAINT models in countries such as Greece, South Africa, Australia, Spain, Germany, Belgium, Japan, China and more to come,” he disclosed.

For Tami Williams, one of Jamaica’s most successful model exports, she still adores her model agent as much as she did when he discovered her at 13 years of age.

“He is extra special in my life ... very strict but definitely looks out for his models like no other. He explained that we must save and look to the future, and we felt confident knowing fully well he has our backs,” shared the St Elizabeth-born fashion star.

Hers is a super-long resume of high-flying achievements that include being a 10-time Chanel runway face, two-time ELLE cover girl, and fronting Dolce & Gabbana, Maybelline, Calvin Klein, Balmain, Ralph Lauren and Express campaigns.

Williams recalled beginning her international career at 15 with an exclusive booking for designer Alexander Wang’s Fall/Winter 2014 show in The Big Apple, 11 years ago.

“I started in New York. One of my most memorable moments I recall is being cast for the Calvin Klein global ad campaign, and I had to dance. It was fun, but nerve-racking, and I had to bring it,” shared Williams, who recently co-fronted the new make-up campaign for Christian Louboutin and walked for Christian Siriano and Sergio Hudson’s Fall 2025 collections at New York Fashion Week.

As equally accomplished as Williams is SAINT supermodel Kai Newman, who together appeared between the pages of American Vogue at their early introductions to high fashion in an editorial shot by late legendary photographer Peter Lindbergh and iconic stylist Grace Coddington. Discovered as a 14-year-old by Peters while walking with her mother on the road in downtown Kingston, Newman says that across the span of her 12 years as a SAINT, many lessons have come her way.

“One of the most important things I learnt is that not every opportunity comes right away, but the right ones are worth the wait,” she remarked. Newman’s once red-hot career, which was launched in 2013 with Benetton, Ralph Lauren and Tommy Hilfiger campaigns on her calling card, would cool four years later after a surprise pregnancy. But, after a mommy time-out caring for her now seven-year-old daughter, Zehirah, for a number of years, Peters was fully on board when she expressed interest in a comeback.

He orchestrated a return to top-flight form for the Allman Town-raised model star. Peters booked her for a Prada Fall 2022 runway show, which led to her landing the global ad campaign. Close on the heels were additional campaigns for Ferragamo, Burberry and Diotima, plus that Harper’s Bazaar March 2023 solo-girl cover, shot in Jamaica no less.

Revealing the best fatherly advice received from Peters, who is called ‘Pops’ by his stable of models, Newman said: “He’s always saying never forget where you come from and be humble. Believe you are a star-and to carry yourself with style and elegance”.

In the meantime, SAINT star Winston Lawrence hops on a call with The Sunday Gleaner as he awaits his Kingston-bound flight in the departure lounge at LaGuardia Airport in New York. He’s eager to be on home turf to partake in the 25th anniversary celebrations.

Lawrence — spotted on a walk home from school in Portland in October 2018 by former model Aneita Moore — was immediately brought to Peters’ attention. In tried and true SAINT fashion, months later, an 18-year-old Lawrence was on a transatlantic flight and strutting the catwalk for Gucci in Italy. “It was like an unreal dream,” he recalled of his debut for then creative director Alessandro Michele’s Fall 2019 show.

“It was my first time ever travelling, and that experience alone changed my entire life. The other major achievement was getting the cover of the prestigious Vogue Homme and later learning I was the first black model to be on that magazine cover. It was a big deal. My recent trip to Greece, which I started to share on TikTok, became a major moment for me as well. People from across the world were happy to share in this real-life experience of mine. I reminded Pops that he had been telling me for a long time to develop my social media profile using my model and travel experience, and it has blown up,” said Lawrence.

Much like Lawrence, Jonny Brown’s first-ever catwalk strut remains his most prized memory of his international fashion exploits. “I was 21 years old and actually walking the Louis Vuitton runway,” he fondly remembered of booking the luxury brand’s menswear show in June 2016 from then creative director Kim Jones. “That will forever be an unforgettable moment for me in Paris.”

As to which of his multitude of fashion assignments spanning several Prada and Balmain runway turns count as his fave, he singles out the Wales Bonner and Adidas collab campaign that was shot in Jamaica in 2023. “This was the first time working in my country, and the locations for the shoots were incredible, and I loved that the theme of the collection was representing Jamaica,” said Brown.

Still in interview mode at AC Hotel, Peters, who himself has branched out into personal brand media with his long-running eponymous talk show, makes it a point to inform The Sunday Gleaner that while females have been traditionally successful, he’s proud to have elevated males in the global industry. SAINT, he noted, has “male models working for major Italian and French fashion brands like Saint Laurent, Prada, Loewe, Gucci and others”.

And, what are his plans for the next 25 years of his little agency that could, which transformed into a seismic force? “I am fine-tuning a long-term strategic plan to have Jamaica positioned within the global fashion ecosystem as a ‘fashion production base’ for a few months every year, thereby establishing the ‘Jamaica Season’. It’s going to be epic as it will [be] revolutionary and game-changing,” Peters shared.

lifestyle@gleanerjm.com