These two remarkable women have made their mark on the fashion world. Despite the challenges they both faced, Ann Cole Lowe and Kimora Lee Simmons have proven that adversity isn’t always a disadvantage.
The first African American to become a high-end fashion designer, Ann Cole Lowe designed the wedding dress of Jacqueline Kennedy. Born in 1898 in the small town of Clayton, Alabama, Lowe was taught how to sew by her seamstress great-grandmother and her mother, Janey Lowe.
After enrolling at St. Taylor Design school, Lowe and her son moved to New York City in 1917. Graduating in 1919, she and her son then moved to Tampa, Florida where Lowe then opened her first dress store, Annie Cohen. It wasn’t until 1928 that she returned to New York City after saving $20,000 where she continued to work on commission for major retailers such as Henri Bendel, Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue and others.
Three years after Lowe and her son opened a second store, Ann Lowe’s Gowns, on New York City’s Lexington Avenue, she was commissioned to design the wedding gown for Jacqueline Bouvier’s wedding to Senator John F. Kennedy. Some of Lowe’s most prominent clients included the DuPonts, the Lodges, the Rockefellers and more.
The multi-talented Kimora Lee Simmons was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1975 to Japanese-born Joanna Perkins and U.S. native Vernon Whitlock Jr. After fleeing from Japan to Korea, Perkins then came to the U.S. during the aftermath of the Korean War when she was adopted by an American family. Simmons dealt with bullying throughout her childhood because of her mixed ethnicity and tall frame.
It wasn’t until Simmons’ mother enrolled her in modeling classes that things started to look up. At the age of 11 Simmons was taking modeling classes, and by the time of her 14th birthday she was boarding a plane to Paris where she was taken under the wing of fashion powerhouse and Chanel designer Karl Lagerfeld. Simmons closed this iconic 1989 show, strutting down the stage alongside Lagerfeld, styled as a child bride. By the age of 15 Simmons had accrued a small fortune, and within the following few years she graduated from high school. Some of the fashion contracts Simmons has signed over the years include Valentino and Yves Saint Laurent, and the mogul has been featured on numerous covers of some of fashion’s biggest magazines.
Serving as CEO of Phat Fashions LLC as well as Creative Director for Baby Phat, the model had decided to take her career beyond modeling. Then in 2007 she launched her sportswear line, KLS. Simmons has since then taken on many other design projects and has appeared on several television shows and in music videos, even getting her own reality show in 2007, “Kimora: Life in the Fab Lane.” She’s also launched her own perfumes and written a self-help book entitled “Fabulosity: What It Is & How to Get It.”
