277 garments across eras and cultures
These two dresses reveal Ann Lowe's extraordinary range across four decades of couture, from the cream silk taffeta's cascading tiers of ruffles that anticipate Jacqueline Kennedy's wedding gown to the charcoal chiffon's knife-sharp pleats punctuated by her signature silk roses.
The safari jacket's crisp military bearing—those sharp breast pockets, the belted waist, the no-nonsense button stance—gets a complete personality transplant forty years later in that slouchy olive coat. Where the '70s piece stands at attention with its structured shoulders and precise tailoring, the contemporary version goes AWOL, letting the same utilitarian details hang loose and oversized like borrowed army surplus.
Both pieces pulse with the same cultural awakening—that moment in the '70s when African American fashion turned toward ancestral aesthetics as political statement. The dashiki's geometric checkerboard of burgundy and gold, punctuated by symbolic motifs, shares DNA with the bucket hat's bold figural patterns rendered in the same high-contrast palette that makes wax-print fabric so visually arresting.
These Vans capture the precise moment when skateboarding's utilitarian aesthetic crossed into mainstream grunge territory in the '90s. The slate blue pair maintains that classic Vans side-stripe DNA and chunky sole that made them essential for both kickflips and Kurt Cobain cosplay, while the black suede version strips away the branding for a more minimal, almost European take on the same rebellious impulse.
