Ann Lowe

Who was Ann Lowe?

Ann Cole Lowe was an African American fashion designer. She designed the wedding dress for Jacqueline Bouvier when she married John Kennedy.

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

She married in 1912, at age 14, and enrolled in a fashion school in New York City in 1917. After graduation, she opened a salon in Tampa, Florida, before returning to New York in 1928, where she worked on commission for stores such as Chez Sonia. In 1946, she designed the dress that Olivia de Havilland wore to accept the Academy Award for Best Actress for To Each His Own, although the name on the dress was Sonia Rosenberg.

She designed for various upper crust New Yorkers, including the ivory-silk-taffeta wedding dress for Jacqueline Kennedy in 1953.

She worked her later years at Saks Fifth Avenue, where she was featured in a 1960 advertisement.

Felled by glaucoma, she lost an eye but continued to design through 1960 for Madeline Couture and briefly operated Ann Lowe Originals on Madison Avenue in New York.