Today for our black history lesson I would like to share with you.....
Fashion Designer Ann Cole Lowe. (1898-1981)
Ann Cole Lowe was born in Clayton, Alabama, the great grandmother of a slave woman and an Alabama plantation owner. She had an older sister named Sallie. Lowe's interest in fashion came from her mother and grandmother, both of them worked as seamstress for the first families of Montgomery and other members of high society. When Lowe's was 16 her mother passed and at the time of her death she was in the process of working on four ball gowns for the First Lady of Alabama, Elizabeth Kirkman O'Neal. With the skills that Lowe learned from her mother and grandmother she finished the dresses.
By the year 1912, Lowe married Lee Cohen and they had a son together. After her marriage her husband wanted her to give up working as a seamstress. She complied for some time and eventually she left him after she was hired to design a wedding dress for a woman in Florida.
Lowe and her son moved to New York in the year 1917 and she enrolled in S.T. Taylor Design School. Since the school was segregated Lowe was required to attend class in a room alone.
She graduated in 1919. After Lowe graduated she moved to Tampa, Florida. The following year she opened her first dress salon " Annie Cohen". Her salon catered to members of high society only. The salon was such an success that Lowe was able to save $20,000 from her earnings and she returned back to New York in 1928. While living in New York she worked for commission for stores such as Henri Bendel, Chez Sonia, Neiman Marcus, and Saks Fifth Avenue.
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. Since she noticed that she wasn't getting credit for her work she decided to open a second salon, Ann Lowe's Gowns in New York on Lexington Ave in 1950. Her one of a kind designs made from the finest fabrics were an success and she attracted many wealthy, high society clients.
Throughout her career she was known for being very selective about her clientele. She used to describe herself as " an awful snob". This quote below would show why she felt that way about herself.
" I love my clothes and I'm particular about who wears them. I am not interested in sewing for cafe society or social climbers. I do not cater to Mary and Sue. I sew for families of the Social Register"
With her high clientele she was hired in 1953 to design a wedding dress for future First Lady Jacqueline Bouvier and the dresses for her bridal attendants for her September wedding to Senator John F. Kennedy. Lowe was chosen by the bride's mother Janet Auchincloss who had previously commissioned Lowe to design the wedding dress she wore when she married Hugh D. Auchincloss in 1942.
The dress she designed was amazing it consisted of fifty yards of "ivory silk taffeta with interwoven bands of tucking forming the bodice and similar tucking in large circular designs swept around the full skirt. The price of the dress was $500 back then but in today's time it is approximately $4,000. Even tho the wedding was a highly publicized event, Lowe did not receive public credit for her
work.
Eventually Lowe continued to work for wealthy clients who often talked her out of charging hundreds of dollars for her designs, After making sure her staff was paid she often didn't make that much of a profit from her designs she was basically broke. In 1962 she lost her salon in New York due to not paying taxes and within that same year she experienced major health issues.
Once her health was taking care off she opened another store in 1968, Ann Lowe Originals on Madison Avenue. After this store opening she retired in 1972. After an extended illness she past away on February 25,1981.
Her legacy lives on throughout many museums throughout the country. A collection of five of her dresses are held at the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Three of them are on display at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington,DC. Several of her other dresses will be included in an exhibition on black fashion at the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan in December 2016.
1 comment:
Yes! So important to know the contribution African American make. Continue writing and sharing.
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