She is most famous for designing Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy’s iconic wedding dress, although she was not given credit at the time when the Ladies Home Journal article said that the dress was made by a “colored dressmaker” an insult to Lowe’s talent and importance. Her prolific career spanned from the 1920s through the 1960s. Raised by her mother and grandmother, she learned her seamstress skills from them, but went on to become a designer and dress maker to the social elite in Tampa and later New York City.

Lowe was a Black woman who grew up in the Jim Crow south. This is an excellent example of the use of historical fiction to bring to our attention life and career of Ann Lowe. I am drawn to stories about strong women from history whose lives were all but forgotten. Taking her young son in the middle of the night, Ann escapes her husband and embarks on the adventure of a lifetime.īased on the true story of one of the most famous designers of the twenties through the sixties who has since been unjustly forgotten, By Design is an unforgettable novel of determination despite countless obstacles and a triumph celebrated by the world.

But then a wealthy Tampa socialite sees Ann's talent and offers her an amazing opportunity-the chance to sew and design clothing for Florida's society elite. After Ann elopes at twelve with an older man who soon proves himself to be an abusive alcoholic, her dreams of becoming a celebrated designer seem to be put on hold. Raised in Jim Crow Alabama, Ann learned the art of sewing from her mother and her grandmother, a former slave, who are the most talented seamstresses in the state. It may take all day and all night for the next two weeks to accomplish the task, but they will do it. She and her seamstresses will find the way to re-create the dresses.

A Black designer who has fought every step of the way, Ann knows this is only one struggle after a lifetime of them. Kennedy, Jr, a pipe bursts at Ann Lowe's dress shop and ruins eleven dresses, including the expensive wedding dress, a dress that will be judged by thousands. Less than a week before the society wedding of the year where Jacqueline Bouvier will marry John F. The incredible untold story of Ann Lowe, Jackie Kennedy's wedding dress designer, a Black woman who made some of the most famous dresses of all time, only to be forgotten by history.

By her own design piper huguley