Fashion Designer Anne Cole-Indelibles.com

Anne Cole Lowe was an African-American, born in the county of Clayton, Alabama, USA, in 1898. Her mother was a seamstress and Anne learned how to stitch from a very young age. Later on, Anne and her mother moved to New York, and Anne married Mr. Cohen. They had a son Arthur who died in 1958. Anne's mother then put together a small dressmaking shop.

When her mother died, Anne completed the dresses she was making and took over the shop. At the same time, and in order to learn dressmaking in a more professional manner, she joined the S.T. Taylor Design School and graduated from their fashion design course.

Before she got married, Jacqueline Bouvier met Anne Cole in the early 1950's and ordered a few of her dresses. When she became engaged to John Kennedy, she decided to get her wedding dress made by Anne Cole, as well as 10 dresses for some of the other ladies attending the wedding.

Anne Cole worked very hard, but was not very business minded, and her tax records were lax. The I.R.S. decided that she owed them a lot of back tax and seized her shop in 1961 whilst she was in hospital having an eye operation. When she came out however, she found some anonymous person had cleared all her debt. It is still supposed that this generous person was Jacqueline Kennedy.

Anne Cole recovered well, and then opened a boutique in Saks Fifth Avenue in 1961. The same year she was awarded the Couturier of the Year Plaque by New York Fashion society. She appeared in the National Social Directory and 1968 Who's Who of American Women. She also opened a new store on Madison Avenue in New York, which did very well. She made more than 2,000 dresses for the society ladies of New York, and was well known for using the "trapunto" technique in her dressmaking.

Five of her gowns are now in the permanent collection of the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum in New York. Others can be found in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, and the Black Fashion Museum in Harlem.

Anne Cole Lowe retired in the 1970s and died in 1981 at the age of 83.