Happy Black History Month!
February means sooooo much to me for a variety of reasons, one being a month dedicated to the history of my ancestry. With that said, as we've done in the past, throughout the month we will feature Black Designers, Models, Entrepreneurs and Fashionable trailblazers that have paved the way in the fashion industry! Today we spotlight the talented Ann Lowe who was one of the first African American female designers that started designing gowns in the 1920s. One of Ann Lowe’s most famous gowns was the ivory silk taffeta wedding gown for Jackie Bouvier (above right) when she married John F. Kennedy in 1953.
She was born in Alabama in 1898, and was the daughter and granddaughter of celebrated seamstresses who were known for sewing for the first ladies of Alabama. Although her mother passed away when she was16, she took it upon herself to finish the needlework for the governor’s wife. Ann enrolled in S.T. Taylor Design School in New York where she focused on her natural God given craft of designing. Soon after she moved to Tampa, Fla., where she opened a small studio there, then returned to New York where she worked as a commissioned designer for major houses in the Fashion District.
Sadly enough, the fashion houses took all of Ann's credit but that did not deter her from becoming an independent designer to society’s elite, such as the du Ponts, Roosevelts, Vanderbilts, Rockefellers, and notably, she designed and made the gown actress Olivia de Haviland wore when she received her Oscar for “To Each His Own.”
Michael Henry Adams said, “Ann Lowe was known as society’s best kept secret…You would have thought her clothing was Parisian couture, but she charged much less to create the same thing. They all went to her for their debutante balls and weddings.” Anne Lowe’s claim to fame, was the wedding gown she designed for Jacqueline Bouvier in 1953, when she married John F. Kennedy. She also designed 10 pink bridesmaid’s gowns and hats for the wedding (Hello, she's AMAZING!). Although newspapers raved about the wedding and John F. Kennedy's political career the social fashion editor of the Washington Post at the time, stated “… the dress was designed by a Negro, Ann Lowe.” Where's the LOVE?!
The infamous dress consisted of 50 yards of ivory silk taffeta, with a full bouffant skirt had interwoven tucking bands and tiny wax flowers and took Ann two months to make. In 1962, her New York salon was seized by the IRS while she was undergoing eye surgery to remove. When she was released from the hospital, she learned that her debt had been paid by an anonymous benefactor (PRAISE HIM)! Ann then opened a store inside Saks Fifth Ave, then her own salon, Anne Lowe Originals, on Madison Ave while making over 2,000 dresses for New York’s elite society. She was awarded the 'Couturier of the Year Plaque' and appeared in the 'National Social Directory' and the 1968 Who’s Who of American Women. The Alabama seamtress' detailed needle technique, is featured at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, Washington D.C.’s Black Fashion Museum, and the Smithsonian. At the age of 83 years old Ms. Ann Lowe passed away. In 1997, the John F. Kennedy Library & Museum had the Textile Conservation Center of the American Textile History Museum in Massachusetts to restore the Kennedy gown.
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