SAINT’s fresh-faced star Sabrina Nugent covers history-making ‘Black Fashion Fair’

SAINT International’s Jamaican beauty Sabrina Nugent is a cover girl for the history-making American fashion publication Black Fashion Fair which launched its debut issue, Volume 0: SEEN, last week to massive global fashion media coverage. With Vogue lauding the inaugural magazine as a “gorgeous collection of black stories and talents” and Harper’s Bazaar trumpeting the designers, models, and creatives featured between the pages as an important “focus on representation in fashion, while reimagining the image of the culture through a Black lens”, Nugent’s cover is a major moment for the teenager discovered just two years ago by SAINT chief executive officer Deiwght Peters at Tarrant High School.

Nugent stars on one of four different covers for the magazine, with supermodels Puerto Rican Joan Smalls and Angolan Maria Borges and rising Trinidadian model Aleya Ali on the other three. Founded by Antoine Gregory, Black Fashion Fair is a historic and comprehensive collection of fashion imagery that features emerging and established design and artistic talent from around the world.

Speaking with Vogue last week about the arrival of Black Fashion Fair, Gregory said: “There’s so many different elements that make up this publication. It shows the diversity of the black experience at a global level. I didn’t want to just have a seat at the table. I wanted to create my own table, and it came with seats for everyone. This is proof of that.”

LOVED THE INITIATIVE

On assignment for Nugent’s Black Fashion Fair cover and accompanying editorial inside was Jamaican-raised, London-based photographer Amber Pinkerton, who told The Sunday Gleaner the origin of her involvement. “The request began to brew around last November,” she explained. “I was asked by stylist and casting director Jonathan Johnson to collaborate with himself for the debut issue, focusing on London designers. I know the team were fans of my work, and I loved the initiative and the opportunity to work with Jonathan. So it was a complete win.”

A trip to shoot on location back home was fortuitously on the cards for Pinkerton. “The story actually should have been shot in London originally,” divulged the photog whose career has taken flight with The New York Times, Dazed and Document Journal, all featuring rhapsodic profiles on her. “ I had a crazy thought one day – “what if I propose shooting in Jamaica” which seemed like an insane and impossible idea due to the deadline and logistics. After looking at the roster of the designers, I thought it was no more than a perfect match based on the heritage and cultural interests of the brands. I was ecstatic when I was given the go-ahead.” The roll-call of Brit designers included racks of clothing and accessories from Wales Bonner, Bianca Saunders, Jawara Alleyne, Mowalola, Selasi and Marvin Desroc.

For her new Rock-centred fashion project, which was her second collaboration with SAINT following a well-received editorial on the agency’s models for i-D magazine in 2019, she made a deliberate effort to transport herself back to her roots and primary style of works. “I’ve been working abroad for such a long while that I needed that rejuvenation and to revert to my more simplistic approach of shooting – keeping it small, less contrived and more spontaneous. I really miss that sometimes.”

“My photographic process varies depending on what and who I am shooting for. Some projects, like this one, allowed me to work in a more free-flowed manner. We had mood boards and ideas, but nothing planned to perfection – it’s about allowing chance,” she added.

Also appearing in the Pinkerton-lensed editorial shot in Ocho Rios and Papine is rising SAINT model Selah McHail, who made his international fashion breakthrough last year starring in an Adidas/Wales Bonner advertising campaign that was also shot in Jamaica.