Day 14 : Ann Cole Lowe, society’s best kept secret. Anne Lowe was born in Clayton, AL. She learned how to sew from her mother and grandmother who was an enslaved dressmaker and later, after the Civil War opened her own shop. Lowe took over the shop after her mom passed. She later moved to Tampa and eventually NY to attend school. In 1917, at the age of 18, she enrolled in a couture course in New York City. When she arrived, the head of the school was aghast that he had admitted a black woman, and he tried to turn her away. Her white classmates refused to sit in the same room as her, but she pushed forward and graduated early. While in NY she worked at Saks Fifth Avenue and Hattie Carnegie. Through the 1940s to the end of the ’60s, Lowe was known as society’s “best-kept secret,” designing outfits for famous socialites like the Rockefellers and du Ponts and Hollywood stars like Olivia de Havilland. She eventually opened her own shop. Lowe is Best known for her design of Jakie Kennedy’s wedding gown. In the 1950s Ann Lowe received a commission to create a wedding gown for society swan Jacqueline Bouvier, she was thrilled. Lowe, an African-American designer who was a favorite of the society set, had been hired to dress the woman of the hour, the entire bridal party and Jackie’s mother. But 10 days before Jackie and Sen. John F. Kennedy were to say “I do,” a water pipe broke and flooded Lowe’s Madison Avenue studio, destroying 10 of the 15 frocks, including the bride’s elaborate dress, which had taken two months to make. With the help of her seamstresses working day and night, they eventually finished the dresses in time. Lowe took an overnight train to Newport, RI, to hand-deliver the dresses herself, the guards at the wedding venue told her she had to use the service door because of the color of her skin. simple wedding outfits with lace
“She said, ‘If I have to use the backdoor, they’re not going to have the gowns!’ ” “They let her in.” Due to poor business sense she later had to close her shop. She died at age 82. Her dresses are currently on display at the @Smithsonian Institution’s new National Museum of African American History & Culture. # teachersofinstagram # teacher # black365 @ Charlotte, North Carolina