The High-Fashion Modeling Agency Finding Talent In Small-Town New Brunswick
SAINT JOHN — Imagine you’ve just finished a meal with your family at a local restaurant. As you head to the car, a tall, striking woman approaches and asks if you’re interested in becoming a professional, high-fashion model.
It’s the stuff of fairy tales, but it does happen — even right in Saint John, New Brunswick.
“I said, ‘can I talk to you for a second?’” recalls Lorraine Peters, the owner of L Models & Personal Development Academy, recalling her first meeting with the now-professional fashion model Sally Ryan.
“I told them who I was and what I do and that, at first glance, you know, I’m interested in Sally’s look.”
Peters gave Ryan and her family her contact information and encouraged them to take a look at her Instagram feed to see what her agency could do.
“I was super excited because I always wanted to do modelling,” says Ryan, remembering the meeting. “I’m pretty tall, but in Saint John you never really think that you could do something like that. So, when this opportunity came up, I was like, well, I might as well just see where this takes me.”
“It’s gotten pretty good,” Ryan says with a laugh.
Since her first encounter with Peters in the summer, the two have worked together to get Ryan signed with Spot 6 Management Inc., an agency in Toronto that has models working with Canadian magazines like Elle and Flare, U.S. publications like Harper’s Bazaar and GQ, as well as working directly with brands like Christian Dior, Chanel, and Holt Renfrew.
This collaboration is likely to lead Ryan to become a “direct-booked” model. That means clients can directly book her based on photographs and videos. This would allow her to continue to live in the Saint John region without having to move to a large centre like Toronto for auditions.
Coincidentally, picking up stakes from Saint Stephen and moving to Toronto was exactly how Peters got her start as a model in the 1980s.
“There was no internet,” she says. “So I packed up my bags and went to a modelling and finishing school … where they teach you all of the etiquette, deportment, being professional, and then the modelling and the photo shoots.”
That training led Peters to a 15-year modelling career and gave her the instincts to know talent when she sees it, as well as the skills to help those new to the industry.
In the fall, Peters brought fashion photographer Erwin Loewen to Saint John to do a shoot with Ryan and other models she’s working with.
Ryan says the experience was a great first taste of the industry.
“I like the confidence part of it,” she says. “We shot in the streets of Saint John and, for some reason, posing in front of all the people and everybody watching, just was so fun.”
“It was almost like a movie. Everyone was [looking at us] like, who’s that?”
Not everyone has the confidence to strike a pose in a public place with passers-by looking on. Building confidence and professionalism is a big part of what Peters specializes in with both her modeling agency and personal development academy.
“There’s so much about this business at that higher level that people just don’t consider, aside from the aesthetic,” Peters says.
“You have to be extremely confident. You have to be okay with rejection. You have to be extremely professional … you have to know not to insult people or be unprofessional in terms of not showing up on time.”
“They don’t entertain that for a moment.”
Peters says one of the big asks she made of Ryan right off the bat was to cut her long, dark locks into a chic, chin-length bob. These kinds of demands are not unheard of in high-level professional modelling.
But you don’t need to be on the catwalk at Paris Fashion Week to benefit from increased confidence, and Peters is taking the lessons she learned in her career and helping regular people achieve their potential by fostering these qualities.
“Everybody and anybody” can participate in Peter’s eight-week development courses. “There’s no age limit. If people want to be more confident and learn about modelling, they’re welcome.”
Alex Graham is a Huddle reporter in Saint John. Send her your feedback and story ideas: [email protected].