FRD Case Study: Ann Lowe: American Couturier
Join us as we present a case study that explores a piece of Black Fashion History – a fashion designer who has been largely underrepresented until recently.
The exhibition Ann Lowe: American Couturier (no longer on view) demonstrates how "Ann Lowe’s work places her among America’s significant fashion designers, and her life illustrates a legacy of Black women’s knowledge and skills that began as enslaved labor. Lowe modernized this legacy and expanded it to international visibility, positioning herself as a creative designer, a fashion insider, and a vital contributor to American culture."
Guest Curator of Ann Lowe: American Couturier, Elizabeth Way, will lead us through a presentation on the life and legacy of designer Ann Lowe, followed by an extended Q&A with Elizabeth and the Great-granddaughter of Ann Lowe, Linda A. Dixon.
Thursday, February 22, 2024
11:00am – 12:00pm EST (virtual)
Zoom Link and Passcode will provided upon registration.
FRD Members visit and log into our Calendar webpage for your complimentary access code.
About Elizabeth Way
Elizabeth Way is Associate Curator of Costume at The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology, where she has curated/co-curated Black Fashion Designers (2016), Fabric In Fashion (2018), Head to Toe (2021), Fresh, Fly, and Fabulous: Fifty Years of Hip Hop Style (2023), and Food & Fashion (2023). Way guest-curated Ann Lowe: American Couturier at Winterthur Museum Garden & Library (2023). She edited and contributed chapters to the books Black Designers in American Fashion (2021) and Ann Lowe: American Couturier. She holds an M.A. in Costume Studies from New York University.
About Linda A. Dixon
As the great grand daughter of Fashion Icon, Ann Lowe, Linda grew up in Harlem admiring how she had design beautiful gowns for high society, in NYC. Linda spent countless years observing the way Ann created her fabric flowers for several of her dresses. Linda had also studied fashion in high school at Art & Design HS. Ann had designed her middle school graduation dress, her mom’s wedding dress and other various family members.
More about our theme for February, “Black (Fashion) History Month”:
The contributions of those who identify as Black or part of the African diaspora has been critical to the development and allure of the fashion industry. Oftentimes overlooked in fashion history books, lessons, fashion exhibitions and films, Black designers, models, photographers, editors and stylists have added coolness and driven innovation throughout a racially-homogenous landscape.
The multi-trillion-dollar fashion industry in fact owes a great debt to the enslaved ancestors who toiled the land to benefit those who mass-produced garments for profit. Despite navigating persistent mis-representation, discrimination and underestimation, The Fashion and Race Database is celebrating the creative triumphs and beauty that the Black community has brought to fashion history throughout the month of February.