Ann Cole Lowe may not be a name you recognize, but you probably have seen her work. She designed the dress that Jacqueline Bouvier wore when she married John F. Kennedy. I should say, the dress she almost didn't wear - because the butler told Ann that she had to use the back door when she came to to deliver the dress. But "Ann said that if she had to enter through the back door, the bride and bridesmaids wouldn't be wearing her dresses for the wedding. Ann entered through the front door." Yes, the reason you probably haven't heard of Ann is because she was African American "and life wasn't fair." As the story shows, "That didn't stop Ann." Being on her own at age 16 after the death of her mother, studying in a separate classroom at design school, even the flooding of her workshop ... nothing stopped her from pursuing the career that set her "spirit soaring."
There is an extensive list of books for further reading and an author's note that shares another tidbit about Ann's life. It was Ann who designed the gown worn by Olivia de Havilland "to the 1947 Academy Awards when she won the Best Actress award for her role in To Each His Own." As the first African American woman to be a couture clothing designer, Ann Cole Lowe is a role model of perseverance and creativity.
A picture book biography perfect for elementary school libraries and classrooms.
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