By Her Own Design

Content Warning: This section discusses enslavement, racism, rape, verbal abuse, and deaths of family members.

On February 24, 1981, Ann Cole Lowe rests in her bed at the age of 82. She watches Prince Charles getting married to Diana on TV while her daughter, Ruth, takes care of her. Ruth describes the exact fashion that Princess Diana is wearing from head to toe. Ann thinks that Diana sounds just as lovely and demure as “her,” Jacqueline Kennedy. She discusses the fashion trends of recent years; wedding dresses have become less glamorous, to Ann’s dismay.

Ann gets stabbing pains, so Ruth comforts her. As she deals with the pain, Ann thinks about her legacy and how she’d love to design just one more show-stopping gown, like she did for Jacqueline.

In September 1963 in New York City, Ann is working on the most high-profile commission of her life: Jacqueline Bouvier’s dress for her marriage to Senator John Kennedy. A young boy wakes Ann up and tells her to come down to her design shop quickly. Ann and her sister, Sallie, reach the design shop and find Jacqueline’s wedding dress—and most of the bridesmaid dresses—ruined by a burst pipe. The dresses are all soiled with water and filth.