Ann Lowe designed Jackie Kennedy’s wedding dress for her 1953 marriage to John F. Kennedy.
Lowe created the ivory silk taffeta gown worn at the couple’s wedding in Newport, Rhode Island. The dress featured a fitted bodice, portrait neckline, full skirt, and woven bands of fabric resembling flowers. Its voluminous silhouette suited the formal wedding ceremony and became one of Lowe’s best-known surviving designs.
Lowe was an African American designer whose clients included prominent American families. She operated in an era when her work was often privately commissioned and insufficiently credited in mainstream fashion coverage. Her technical skill was especially valued for elaborate formalwear and wedding dresses.
Oleg Cassini is frequently associated with Jackie Kennedy because he later became her official White House designer. Cassini designed many of her public clothes, but Ann Lowe made the 1953 wedding gown.