Black History Month - Sewing for Joy: Anne Lowe!
- Courtenay Christian
- Feb 27, 2019
- 3 min read
Anne Cole Lowe, a little-known African-American fashion designer who battled personal and social adversity in order to pursue her passion of making beautiful gowns and went on to become one of society's top designers.
This has been a very rewarding Black History Month. So what makes this year different from the past years? I speak to so many different people daily and the hot topic of conversation is DNA testing (to name a few, My Heritage DNA Test, Ancestry DNA Test and 23andMe DNA Ancestry Test). The curiosity of where we come from and what nationality we are, has most wanting answers. I haven't done a DNA yet, but I decided to look a little deeper into Black History. While researching Black Seamstresses, I learned of the Anne Cole Lowe’s story. Unfortunately, many Black inventors and contributors are often forgotten, which can leave some Black Americans today feeling that they have no place in American History. So although we are at the end of Black History Month, as my mother would say, Black History is not just in the month of February. Please read on to learn more about this remarkable women named Anne Cole Lowe.....
Born in Clayton, Alabama, in 1898, Ann Lowe (née Cole) was the daughter and granddaughter of accomplished seamstresses. "She learned from them," said curator Nancy Davis. "She was really gifted, but she was also part of this lineage of seamstresses . . . and really capable ones." When Lowe was a child, she loved to play with the scraps left over from her mother's work, sewing and shaping them to transform them into flowers.
As a child, Ann Lowe would transform the scraps from her mother's work as a dressmaker, sewing and shaping them into flowers. Years later, flowers would be a hallmark of an Ann Lowe dress. One debutante brought her dress to Lowe for repairs when her date snipped a flower off of the dress and wore it as a boutonniere.
In 1914, when her mother died suddenly, young Ann Lowe, only 16 years old, completed her mother's commissions—including one for the First Lady of Alabama. Lowe continued to pursue her passion for design and sewing. When a wealthy Floridian invited Lowe to Florida to make dresses, Lowe recalled "I picked up my baby and got on that Tampa train."
In 1917 Lowe studied at New York's S.T. Taylor Design School. With racial segregation the common practice even in the North, Lowe "was separated from the other students and had her own space where she worked," Davis said, "but her work was so exceptional that she was used as an example."
After earning her diploma, Lowe continued to work as a designer for the social elite. "I love my clothes and I'm particular about who wears them," Lowe later told Ebony magazine, "I am not interested in sewing for . . . social climbers. I do not cater to Mary and Sue. I sew for the families of the Social Register." Lowe's clients included the du Ponts, the Roosevelts, the Rockefellers, and the Auchinclosses (famous today for family member Jacqueline "Jackie" Bouvier, better known as First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis).
Mrs. Auchincloss brought her daughter Lee Bouvier, Jackie's sister, to Ann Lowe to order her wedding gown. However, Lee and her mother soon canceled the order. They heard another designer, Pauline Trigère, would cost less. Ultimately the Trigère dress cost more, and when Jackie announced her engagement to then Senator John F. Kennedy, it was Ann Lowe who designed the bridal gown, as well as dresses for the bridal party.
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