6 African-American designers that shaped fashion

Elizabeth Keckley

In the 1860s, former Virginia-born slave Elizabeth Keckley became the personal dressmaker and close confidante of Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of Abraham Lincoln. Although her journey to the White House was an arduous one, Keckley finally bought her freedom from her St.Louis owners and then established herself as a skillful seamstress for the most influential women in Washington D.C. as well as a civil activist and author. 

Zelda Wynn Valdes

Born in Pennsylvania in 1905, Zelda Wynn Valdes lived during an era when racial segregation was part of daily life. She began as a storeroom worker in a boutique, eventually climbing her way up to seamstress. At the apex of her career, Valdes made clothes for Ella Fitzgerald and Maria Cole, Nat King Cole’s wife. She designed Cole's famous off-the-shoulder wedding dress in 1948, the very same year in which she opened her own boutique.

Ann Lowe

Ann Lowe was the first African-American to become a fairly renowned fashion designer. From the 1920s to the 1960s, Lowe’s unique designs were worn by high society women. Lowe ultimately designed one of the most famous wedding dresses in history: the ivory silk taffeta bridal gown worn by Jacqueline Bouvier when she married John F. Kennedy in 1953. Unfortunately, Lowe never received the deserved credit from neither the press nor the First Lady herself because of her race. In 1968, however, Lowe opened her store, Ann Lowe Originals, on Madison Avenue and, today, her work is exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Jay Jaxon