At times life can be challenging and unfair to the point of making an individual give up. However, our dreams keep us alive. They help our candles of greatness to continue lighting despite the wind blowing. Everyone passes through the same in their career, but Ann Lowe’s fashion career had a bitter end.
This article will talk about a black individual, particularly a woman who was a great black designer. However, her career ended in tears. She was utterly penniless despite the hard work she put in. Imagine if you had a talent, and it is your way of making both ends meet, but you have nothing at the end of your career or project. Please take a moment and think about it.
So, before we talk about Ann Lowe’s career up to her downfall, I believe it is vital to shedding some little light on her background, career, legacy, and early life. Moreover, we will briefly discuss who Jackie Kennedy is and her relationship with Ann Lowe or what connected them.
What More Should We Know About Ann Lowe?
Ann Cole Lowe was an African-American fashion designer and the 1st black American to become a noted fashion black designer. Ann Lowe’s unique designs were a favorite among elites or a high society matron from the 1920s-1960s. Ann Lowe was famous for designing the ivory silk taffeta wedding dress that Jacqueline Bouvier wore when she married John F. Kennedy in the mid-20th century (1953).
The Early and Personal Life of Ann Lowe
Ann Lowe was born in rural Clayton, Alabama, in the late 19th century (1898). She was the great grand-daughter of an enslaved woman and an Alabama farm or plantation owner. She had an older sister known as Sallie. Ann Lowe’s interest in sewing, fashion, and designing came from her mum Janey and grandmother Georgia, both of whom worked as seamstresses for the 1st families of Montgomery and other members of an elite society. Ann Lowe’s mum passed on when Ann Lowe was just sixteen years old. At the time of her demise, Ann Lowe’s mum worked on 4 ball gowns for the 1st Lady of Alabama called Elizabeth Kirkman O’Neal. Using the skills she learned from her mum and grandmother, Ann Lowe finished the dresses.
In the early 20th century (1912), she married Lee Cohen, with whom she had a kid, a son, called Arthur Lee. After her marriage, Ann Lowe’s husband wanted her to give up working as a seamstress. Ann Lowe compiled for a time but left him after being hired to design a wedding dress for a woman in the Florida region.
According to Ann Lowe’s personal life records, Ann Lowe married twice and had another child apart from Arthur Lee. As mentioned above, she married her 1st husband, Cohen, and had a son Arthur Lee, who later worked as Ann Lowe’s business partner until his demise from a car accident. Ann Lowe and Cohen’s marriage ended because he opposed Ann’s having a career. Ann Lowe married for the 2nd time, but the marriage also ended.
Indeed, I might say that Ann Lowe is one of the strongest black women in history. Ann Lowe later said that her 2nd husband left her because he wanted a real wife, not the one who was getting out of bed to sketch dresses. Ann Lowe later adopted a daughter called Ruth Alexander. In the 1930s, Ann Lowe resided in an apartment on Manhattan Avenue in Harlem. Sallie, her sister, later moved in or lived with her. Both of them were members of St. Mark’s United Methodist Church.
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Ann Lowe’s Fashion Career
In the early 20th century (1917), Ann Lowe and her son moved to New York City, where she enrolled at S.T. Taylor Design School. As the learning institution was segregated, Ann Lowe was to attend classes in a room alone. After graduating (1919), Ann Lowe and her son moved to Tampa, Florida. The next year, she launched her 1st dress salon. The salon catered to members of elite society and became a success fast. Having saved more than$18000 from her income or earnings, Ann Lowe returned to New York City (NYC) in 1928.
Ann Lowe worked on commission for stores like Henri Bendel, Neiman Marcus, Chez Sonia, and Saks Fifth Ave for some time. In the mid-20th century (1946), she designed the dress that Olivia de Havilland wore to accept the Academy Award for Best Actress for Each His Own,’ although the name on the dress was Sonia Rosenberg.
As Ann Lowe was not getting credit for her work, she and her son launched a 2nd salon (Ann Lowe’s Gowns) in NYC on Lexington Ave in 1950. Her distinct designs made from the best or finest fabrics were a success and attracted many rich, elite clients. Design elements for which she was famous include: signature flowers, handwork, and trapunto technique. Throughout Lowe’s career, she was famous for being very selective in choosing her clientele. She later said:
“I love my clothes, and I am particular about who wears them. I am not interested in sewing for social climbers or cafe society. I do not cater to Mary and Sue. I sew for the families of the Social Register.”
Throughout Ann Lowe’s fashion career, she created designs for various generations of the Rockefeller, Auchincloss, Du Pont, Lodge, Post, and Biddle families.
In 1953, Janet Lee Auchincloss hired Ann Lowe to design a wedding dress for her daughter, the future 1st Lady Jacqueline Bouvier or Jackie Kennedy, and the dresses for her bride’s maid or bridal attendants for her September wedding to John Kennedy as mentioned earlier. Janet Lee Auchincloss also chose Ann Lowe to design her wedding dress for her marriage to Hugh D. Auchincloss in the 20th century (1942). Ann Lowe’s dress for Jackie Kennedy comprised over 45 yards of ivory silk taffeta with interwoven bands of tucking forming the bodice and similar tucking in big or large circular designs swept around the full skirt. While Jackie Kennedy’s wedding was a highly publicized event, Ann Lowe didn’t receive public credit for her work for the 2nd time.
Throughout her career, Ann Lowe continued to work for rich clientele who often took advantage of her and making her charge a few pennies for her incredible designs.
After compensating or paying her workers, she often failed to make any profit on her designs. Ann Lowe later confessed that at her career’s height, she was broke and devastated. In 1961, Ann Lowe got the Couturier of the Year Award, but the following year (1962), she lost her salon in New York City after failing to pay her taxes. That same time, her right eye got removed because of glaucoma. While she was healing, an anonymous ally, probably Jackie Kennedy, paid Ann Lowe’s debts which enabled her to work again. In 1963, Ann Lowe declared that she was bankrupt. Soon after, she developed a cataract in her other eye, but surgery saved it. 5 years later (1968), she launched a new store called Ann Lowe Originals on Madison Ave. She later retired in 1972.
The Death and Legacy of Ann Lowe
In the last 5 years of Ann’s life, Ann Lowe lived with Ruth, her daughter, in Queens. She passed on at her daughter’s home on February 25th, 1981, after an illness. Her funeral got held on March 3rd.
A collection of more than three of Ann Lowe’s designs is at the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 3 are on display at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) in Washington D.C.
More on who Jackie Kennedy is?
Before we conclude the article, it is vital to understand more about who Jackie Kennedy was.
Jacqueline Lee Kennedy Onassis was an American writer, socialite, and photographer. Her popularity was because of her devotion to the White House’s historic preservation, fashion sense, and commitment to her kids. During her lifetime, people regarded Jackie as an international fashion icon. Jackie’s ensemble of a pink Chanel suit and pillbox hat that she wore in Dallas has become a symbol of her husband’s demise.
Jackie Kennedy was born in 1929 in Southampton to John Vernou Bouvier and his wife called Janet Lee Bouvier. In the mid-20th century (1951), she graduated with a B.A in French literature from George Washington University and worked for the Washington Times-Herald as a photographer.
After her husband’s killing and funeral, Jackie Kennedy and her children withdrew from the public view. In 1968, she left her kids in the U.S. and married Aristotle Onassis, a Greek shipping magnate, which replaced her image with one of materialism. Following Onassis’s demise in 1975, she had a career as a book editor in NYC, 1st at Viking Press and then at Doubleday.
In 1999, people listed her as one of Gallup’s Most-Admired Men and Women of the 20th century. Jackie Kennedy got buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
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