Ann Lowe :Fashion Designer

In 1953, Jacqueline Bouvier and John Kennedy was the most glamorous couple in America. Jackie was a 24-year-old debutante turned photojournalist and Kennedy at 36, was a former war hero and Senator from Massachusetts. Young, beautiful and wealthy, they made the cover of Life Magazine. which celebrated their romance.

Their marriage on September 6, 1953, in Newport, Rhode Island was a lavish affair on the level of a royal wedding. Upwards of three thousand spectators lined the streets around St. Mary’s Church for a glimpse of the couple, while inside six hundred guests oohed and ahhed as Jackie walked down the aisle in a stunning wedding dress that nearly stole the show.  

It was the wedding of the year. Hundreds of photographs left no detail uncovered, except for one key tidbit of information about “The Dress.” Who was the designer behind the gorgeous bridal gown that was created from 50 yards of ivory silk taffeta complete with flounces and embroidery? Only one news organization, the Washington Post, gave Ann Lowe credit as the designer for the future First Lady’s wedding gown. Had her name been mentioned in all the press, Lowe would have been swamped with orders for “Jackie’s dress,” and she would have had years of financial security rather than the destitution she endured during her final years. Instead, Lowe remained invisible as “society’s best kept secret,” even as millions of people admired her most significant creation.

Ann Lowe was born in rural Alabama, on Dec. 14, 1891 into a family of talented dressmakers. Her mother, Janie Cole Lowe and grandmother, Georgia Thompkins, were seamstresses who ran a successful business making clothes for white clientele in Montgomery, Alabama. Lowe learned how to sew from them and at 16 when her mother died, she took over the business. Her very first job was to finish four dresses that her mother had been working on for a New Year’s Eve ball. One of them was for the wife of Alabama’s governor. She made the deadline and for the next few years she kept the business going as she honed her dressmaking skills. She also married her first husband, Lee Cone during this time.

In April 1917, Lowe left Tampa where she had been a live-in seamstress for a family to start classes at the   S.T. Taylor Design School in New York City. When she arrived, she wasn’t allowed to take classes with the rest of the students because the director said the white students refused to have an African American in the class. Undaunted, Lowe persuaded the director to let her stay and she took classes alone in a separate room, finishing her courses ahead of schedule.  

Returning to Tampa, Lowe opened the Annie Cone boutique, specializing in making ball gowns and formal wear.  Business was so good she had to hire a staff of 18 seamstresses to keep up with the demand. By 1920, Lowe was divorced and had a second husband, Caleb West. Even as her new marriage and her boutique business flourished, Lowe never lost sight of her bigger ambitions for a salon in New York City.

So, in 1928, Lowe closed the boutique and with West, moved to the Big Apple to chase her dream. At first, she rented salon space on West 46th Street with a plan to cultivate clients. But the timing wasn’t great. The next year, the stock market crashed and the country entered a decade of economic decline. With few orders, Lowe closed her studio and became a designer for luxury retailers, including Henri Bendel, Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus. She also found work at major companies in New York City’s fashion district, including Hattie Carnegie and Chez Sonia.

By 1947, after more than three decades as a dress designer, Lowe had become a master couturier. When actress Olivia de Haviland accepted the Oscar that year for best actress in the movie, To Each His Own, she was wearing a hand-painted floral Ann Lowe design from the house of Chez Sonia.

It wasn’t until the 1950s, with business partner Grace Stelhi, that Lowe was able to finally fulfill her dream of owning a fashion salon in the New York. Ann Lowe, Inc at 667 Madison Avenue became the address where upper crust society matrons named duPont, Rockefeller and Auchincloss arrived for fittings for their fanciest evening wear.

She was the first African American person to have a fashion studio on Madison Avenue. Over her career she would have three other custom design stores on Madison and Lexington Avenues and her reputation increased with each one. Even Christian Dior was reportedly impressed by her technique, creativity and craftsmanship, when he first came across her gowns.

In an interview in Ebony magazine in 1966, she said “I love my clothes and I’m particular about who wears them. I’m not interested in sewing for café society or social climbers. I do not cater to Mary and Sue. I sew for the families of the Social Register.” In another interview for the Mike Douglas show, she said one of the greatest satisfactions her career had brought her was she had been able to prove “that a Negro can become a major dress designer.”

One of Lowe’s best clients was Janet Bouvier, who asked Lowe to make a dress for her second wedding to Hugh Auchincloss in 1942. Eleven years later, she asked Lowe to do the same for her oldest daughter, Jacqueline.

Lowe knew this was the biggest commission of her life. Besides the wedding gown, Lowe was also making all the bridesmaid dresses. But ten days before the wedding, a pipe burst in her studio and the flood ruined almost every dress she had been working on for the last two months. Lowe had to start all over, ordering new material at a cost she absorbed, and hiring extra seamstresses to work round the clock.  Lowe never told her client about the accident and ended up losing $2,200 on the entire order.

Taking the train to Newport on the day of the wedding, Lowe arrived at the Auchincloss mansion only to be told to go round to the servants’ entrance because she was Black.  Lowe replied she that would “take the dresses back” unless she could enter through the front door.

While the dress Lowe created is now considered a classic for its chic timeless elegance, Jackie Kennedy reportedly wasn’t thrilled with the design. With its off the shoulder, sweetheart neckline and bouffant skirt with wax flowers, Jackie thought it was over the top. She compared the skirt to a lampshade. Jackie was a fashionista and she wanted something more streamlined with a “latest from Paris” vibe. 

Sadly, Lowe’s business skills failed to match her mastery of fabric, thread, color and design. She often underpriced her designs and was frequently broke because she would give in when wealthy clients would haggle over their cost. For a while until he died in a car crash, her son, Arthur Cone, managed her bills and helped keep her business afloat. In 1962, after an eye surgery for glaucoma, she was trying to continue to work when she was hit with a $12,800 back tax bill. Facing bankruptcy, she got a call from the IRS that “an anonymous friend,” rumored to be Jackie Kennedy, had taken care of the bill.

Lowe worked until she lost her eyesight, retiring at 72.  She lived out her last years in Queens, New York and died at age 82.

©2023 Alice Look

Executive Producer, Remarkable Women Project.