by “Finally, finally – she’s getting her due.”
That’s how Linda Ann Dixon, granddaughter of the fashion designer Ann Lowe, summed up the importance of the Black designer’s pioneering work that was highlighted in “Women Designing Women,” the exhibition that will soon open at City Museum Clothing Institute. Despite being a designer in the 1950s and 1960s for Marjorie Merriweather Post and other members of society, Lowe did not speak much during her life.
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During a media preview Monday morning at The Met, Dixon was seated next to a dress designed by Lowe in 1963 that has prime real estate in the exhibit. Wearing a full-length mink coat, a silk blouse with knotted pearls, and an ecru handbag printed with “Protect Black People,” Dixon addressed the guests and agreed to pose for a selfie or two. Sharing Lowe’s story is her priority. When asked about the significance of the event, Dixon said, “There’s a lot of emotion involved because she and I were so close.”
Above all, she wants future generations to be inspired by Lowe’s work and tenacity, despite the nation’s racial divide in the 1950s and 1960s. Although many associate Lowe with being the long uncredited designer of Jackie Kennedy’s 1953 wedding dress, his fashion reach spanned many branches of American society, including the HF du Pont family, the Rockefellers and the Roosevelts. As well as Post, another high-profile society client of Lowe’s was Kennedy’s mother Janet Lee Bouvier, who wore one of Lowe’s designs to marry Hugh Auchincloss in 1942.
Recalling how many times Lowe was frustrated by magazine articles or something someone said about something she put her heart into, Dixon said, “To finally be able to get all that out, and say, ‘Nana, I hope you can bring all that out. hear what’s going on.’ I hope she knows that she is finally being recognized for her passion.”
After pushing “for 30 years or more” for Lowe to get her due, Dixon recommended the late scholar Margaret Powell, one of the National Museum of African American History and Culture’s Elaine Nichols fellowship advisers, the Museum at FIT’s Elizabeth Way and Dixon’s agent. Sharon Parker-Frazier for doing their part. Noting how her mother also tried, but “unfortunately she went to the wrong people,” Dixon said she also learned through trial and error “and is still learning.”
A department store encounter with Tampa socialite Josephine Edwards Lee, who suggested Lowe about her outfit, led to a job offer for a dressmaker. Despite her first husband’s disapproval, Lowe relocated to the family estate with her son. Later, with the support of her employer, Lowe enrolled in the ST Taylor School of Design in New York City. Lowe took classes by herself in a room at the segregated school, but still performed better than her classmates. In the city, Lowe would go on to design for Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue and her own eponymous business.
Encouraged by the recent interest in Lowe’s work, such as “Ann Lowe: American Couturier” at the Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library, Dixon said, “I want this to be a learning lesson in all aspects for designers young people and for young business people. I want to learn them not only from here [story] but maybe benefit from her through scholarships in her name.”
That’s something that Dixon will pursue in the future. A documentary and film are also in the works, as is a book being developed “to correct all the previous books that have this kind of misrepresentation,” she said.
While some of Lowe’s archives can be found in museums such as The Met, and Dixon also has some, other items were allegedly stolen. When Lowe died in Queens, NY, in 1981, Dixon said she and others were not told that Lowe was ill. For the last five years of her life, the designer lived with Ruth Alexander in Alexander’s Queens home. Alexander was one of Lowe’s seamstresses who acted as her caretaker. After Lowe’s death, Dixon said “people just left and just took things,” even a relative. Dixon claims jewelry, furs, letters, some of Lowe’s designs, valuable art and “very expensive gifts from her clients” were taken.
In the summer of 2020, Ann Lowe’s dress for AF Chantilly appeared in a thrift store in Upper Arlington, Ohio. The garment is now part of The Ohio State University’s historic clothing and textiles collection. Lowe used the Ann Lowe label for AF Chantilly from the late 1960s onwards. She designed the evening wear and bridal wear, while another designer, Florence Cowell Gayle, made dresses and day suits for the brand. Gayle’s son, Jim Gessner, ran the business that housed the label and donated some of the designs to an Ohio thrift store associated with his church.
As for Lowe’s reaction to The Met including her in “Women Dressing Women,” Dixon said, “Her heart would be bursting with joy. And she didn’t recognize him. She did it because she liked it. You can see in her work that she liked it. For someone to take her passion and put it in their name, that’s what she didn’t like.”
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