It's February and Black History Month

Who designed the bridal gown for a future first lady?

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Ann Cole Lowe (1898-1981) was an African-American fashion designer who designed the ivory, silk, taffeta wedding dress of Jacqueline Bouvier when she married John F. Kennedy on September 12, 1953.

Ann was born in Clayton, Alabama and was the great granddaughter of a slave and plantation owner.

In 1912, at the age of 14, she married. Ann's career began, unfortunate as it was, with the death of her mother when Ann was just 16 years old. At the time of her death, Ann’s mother, a seamstress, who taught Ann sewing at an early age, had been working on four ball gowns for the wife of Alabama's governor. Ann assumed the responsibility and finished the work that her mother had started.

In 1917, Ann enrolled in design school in New York. After graduation, she opened a salon in Tampa, Florida before returning to New York in 1928 where she worked on commission for various fashion salons. Although her creations did well, the salon owners always received the credit. Finally, Ann and a partner opened up their own shop in New York.

It was during this time that Jacqueline Bouvier commissioned Ann to design all the gowns for her wedding to Senator John F. Kennedy, a man who would later become president of the United States of America. However, 10 days before the wedding, a water line burst in her store ruining 10 of the dresses for the bridal party. Ann was able to remake all of the gowns by the wedding day.

What The Bride Wore…

Excerpt from News Release
"Special Exhibit Celebrates 50th Anniversary of the Wedding of Jacqueline Bouvier and John F. Kennedy"

“…Jacqueline Bouvier’s ivory silk wedding gown required 50 yards of ivory silk taffeta and took more than two months to make. It was the creation of Ann Lowe, an African-American dress-maker born in Grayton, Alabama, who had designed gowns for the matrons of high society families including the du Pont, Lodge, and Auchincloss families. Ms. Lowe was 54 when she designed the Bouvier wedding dress, which featured a portrait neckline and bouffant skirt decorated with interwoven bands of tucking and tiny wax flowers. She also designed the pink faille silk gowns and matching Tudor caps worn by the bridal attendants.

The bride wore her grandmother’s heirloom rosepoint lace veil, attached to her hair with a small tiara of lace and traditional orange blossoms. She also wore a single strand of family pearls, a diamond leaf pin, which was a wedding present from Ambassador and Mrs. Joseph P. Kennedy, and a diamond bracelet the groom had presented to her the evening before the wedding. She carried a bouquet of white and pink spray orchids and gardenias.

The John F. Kennedy Library and Museum commissioned the Textile Conservation Center of the American Textile History Museum in Lowell, Massachusetts to restore Mrs. Kennedy’s wedding gown in 1997…”

In 1962, misfortune struck when Ann lost her store to the IRS because of taxes she apparently owed. Seriously in debt, the worst nightmare a seamstress or designer could possibly imagine occurred when Ann’s right eye developed glaucoma and had to be removed. When she came out of the hospital, it appeared that her luck had changed as an anonymous person had paid off all her debt – rumor has it that it was her 1953 bride.

Unfortunately, just when she thought her luck was changing, Ann’s other eye developed cataract, however, luckily this time, surgery saved her vision and she was able to return to work. In the mid 1960s, she briefly ran her own salon named "Ann Lowe's Originals" on Madison Avenue in New York City -- Ann Lowe was nearly seventy at the time.

She retired in the 1970s and died in 1981 at the age of 83.

As well as designing one of the most photographed and talked about wedding dresses in history, Ann Lowe also designed for various socialite New Yorkers including the DuPonts, Roosevelts, Posts, Biddles, Rockefellers, Auchinclosses, and other families that were listed in the Social Register.

Several of Ann's gowns are now in the permanent collection of the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum in New York City. Her designs can also found in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, and the Black Fashion Museum in Harlem, New York.

Ann Cole Lowe, an African-American legend.