Ann Lowe’s Early Profession – The Style Historian

February is Twilight Historical past Hour! To praise right here on The Style Historian, I requested my pricey good friend and associate Elizabeth Manner if she would pen a few visitor posts about two fantastic African American trend designers and dressmakers and she or he kindly affirmative. Experience!

Ann Lowe pictured in Ebony album in 1966.

Ann Lowe was once a prominent population designer in Unutilized York Town within the Nineteen Fifties and Sixties. Her designs have been so unique that she limited her shoppers to these discovered at the Social Sign up; family with names like Roosevelt, DuPont, and Rockefeller. Her most famed design was once for Jacqueline Kennedy’s wedding ceremony get dressed, however she additionally made numerous wedding ceremony and debutante robes for American socialites. Anne Lowe made couture-quality robes on par with the most productive French designers, true items of artwork that now are living in museums just like the Museum on the Style Institute of Generation, the Metropolitan Museum of Artwork, and the Smithsonian Nationwide Museum of African American Historical past and Tradition. However earlier than she got here to Unutilized York, Lowe constructed her occupation as inventive and technically professional trend fashion designer in Tampa, Florida.

Ann Lowe was once born in 1898 in Clayton, Alabama. This was once a rural the town within the Jim Crow south, the place maximum blacks struggled as sharecroppers, however Ann’s nation was once than even some white households as a result of her grandmother, Georgia Cole, and her mom, Janey Lowe, have been magnificient dressmakers. Georgia was once a former slave who were purchased and freed by means of her husband, a separate unlit guy named Common Cole. When Ann was once very younger the nation moved to 1st viscount montgomery of alamein, and established a thriving industry, fashioning robes for the population girls of the surrounding capitol. Ann grew up choosing up scraps from her grandmother and mom’s paintings and stitching them into gorgeous replicas of the plant life she noticed within the field—those floral accents would develop into a signature of her designs. In 1914 Janey died all of sudden, depart her daughter to finish an impressive form for the governor’s spouse. 16-year-old Ann, now not most effective completed the form, she took over her mom’s industry. Her already complex design and stitching abilities made her a succesful designer, but if she married and gave delivery to her son Arthur, her husband, Lee Cone, forced her to surrender her paintings and keep house along with her nation. But she by no means forbidden designing—in lieu of stitching for socialites, she formed gorgeous clothes for herself.

Gasparilla Courtroom dressed in robes designed by means of Ann Lowe, 1927. Twilight Style Museum.

One past, Josephine Lee, a rich socialite from Florida, noticed a highly regarded younger unlit girl from throughout an Alabama branch collect. Mrs. Lee was once so inspired by means of Ann’s elegant clothes she needed to ask about them and when she came upon that Ann made them herself, she leased the younger girl at the spot as her live-in designer. Mrs. Lee had 4 daughters who all wanted trendy garments for the social season and Ann was once to construct them. Lee Cone was once towards the walk, however Ann noticed a chance to proceed and increase the occupation she beloved, and so she and Arthur enroute the teach to Tampa.

In Florida, Ann’s occupation flourished. The Lee ladies’ pals coveted their fashion-forward clothes and Ann was once quickly probably the most prevailing designer on the town. She was once recognized for making unedited designs and dealing speedy—from time to time a girl would loose by means of her store within the morning with material for a get dressed that she may just select up and put on that night time. The Lee nation adored Ann and supported her rising skill—in 1917 they inspired her choice to wait design college in Unutilized York Town. Happily for Tampa, its magnificient designer returned next a yr—Lowe was once so professional that she finished the route paintings of her design college in part the past, even though she was once segregated to a independent lecture room to paintings abandoned on account of her race. Ann reopened her industry and by means of the past she became 21, she hired eighteen dressmakers in her store.

Gasparilla Courtroom dressed in robes designed by means of Ann Lowe, 1928. Twilight Style Museum.

Although Lowe made all kinds of clothes, she was once perfect recognized for beautiful ball robes. Tampa hosted an annual social match referred to as the Gasparilla competition, which was once filled with balls for the wealthiest citizens. Younger ladies from the most productive households have been elected to a Gasparilla courtroom—probably the most prevailing was once topped the Gasparilla Queen—they usually all sought after clothes by means of Ann. One socialite recalled, “If you didn’t have a Gasparilla gown by Annie, you might as well stay home.”

In interviews given past due in her presen, Ann Lowe all the time remembered her Tampa shoppers fondly and her past there as more than pleased. However she was once destined for a larger era. She made an everlasting walk to Unutilized York in 1928, once more supported by means of the Lees who favored her skill and ambition. But, a neighborhood newspaper reported, “There is much ‘weeping and wailing and maybe gnashing of teeth’ to use the old expression, among Tampa society maids over the fact that Annie Cone [as she was known then] is going to New York City… feminine society is wondering just how it will be able to survive the future social seasons without her assistance.” Just about 40 years next, her Tampa shoppers nonetheless remembered their fantastic fashion designer. A Tampa Tribune article, written in 1965, integrated a number of interviews of Lowe’s Tampa shoppers and reported that, “everyone we spoke to who had an Ann Lowe gown remembers it distinctly and nostalgically.” The 1924 Gasparilla queen, Sarah Keller Hobbs, sentimentally recalled, “There was never anyone like Annie.”

Additional Studying

Frye, Alexandria, “Fairy Princess Gowns Created By Tampa Designer for Queen In Gasparilla’s Golden Era”, Tampa Tribune, Feb. 7 1965, pp. 6-E.

Powell, Margaret, “The Life and Work of Ann Lowe: Rediscovering ‘Society’s Best-Kept Secret’”, (grasp’s thesis for the Smithsonian Buddies and the Corcoran School of Artwork and Design, 2012).

Elizabeth Manner, Curatorial Associate on the Museum at FIT. Elizabeth
wrote her grasp’s thesis at the African American dressmakers Elizabeth
Keckly and Ann Lowe and continues to investigate the intersection of
African American tradition and trend.