Dubbed the “social event of the year” in archival footage featured in CNN’s “American Dynasty: The Kennedys,” Jacqueline Lee Bouvier married John F. Kennedy on Sept. 12, 1953, in Newport, R.I. The highly publicized ceremony and reception set the course for one of America’s most influential first couples of the 20th century.
Jackie Kennedy, later Onassis, wore a gown that’s become one of the most memorable wedding dresses in American political history. The ensemble was crafted with 50 yards of ivory silk taffeta, featuring the dramatic Christian Dior-inspired “New Look” silhouette, which the French designer introduced in the late 1940s.
In contrast to the styles of the 1920s and 1930s, the post-World War I and World War II era of Dior’s “New Look” emphasized femininity, with yards of fabric creating a full skirt, a cinched waist and rounded shoulders, for the hourglass aesthetic. In keeping with the silhouette, Kennedy’s wedding gown featured a fitted bodice and a portrait neckline, with embellishments and interwoven bands of tucked fabric, and a voluminous skirt constructed using the “trapunto” sewing technique to create ruffles and a concentric circles layering effect.
Bridal portrait of Jacqueline Lee Bouvier shows her in an Anne Lowe-designed wedding dress, a bouquet of flowers in her hands circa 1953.
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Who Designed Jackie Kennedy’s Wedding Dress?
Ann Lowe was the designer behind Jackie Kennedy’s wedding dress to Kennedy. At the time, Lowe’s name went uncredited for designing the gown, with WWD only covering a description of the dress in its wedding coverage.
Lowe had a reputation for her delicate designs, florals and use of lace. Prior to curating Kennedy’s gown, the designer worked as “a prominent dressmaker to debutantes and social climbers,” though she was “virtually unrecognized in the early 20th century,” Tonya Blazio-Licorish and Tara Donaldson write in “Black in Fashion: 100 Years of Style, Influence & Culture.”
Days before the wedding, a flood in Lowe’s shop ruined the wedding and bridesmaid dresses. Lowe and her team worked overtime to make new dresses according to the original designs. The recreations added costs at Lowe’s personal expense.
Ann Lowe fitting one of her designs on model Alice Baker at a fashion show on Dec. 10, 1962.
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Katya Roelse, who created a replica of Lowe’s famous wedding gown for a 2023 exhibition at the Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library, told WWD in 2024 that Jackie Kennedy’s soon-to-be father-in-law and Kennedy family patriarch Joseph Kennedy Sr. “liked the optics of an American designer like Ann Lowe; J.F.K. wanted something more traditional, and her mother [Janet Auchincloss] and stepfather [Hugh Auchincloss] didn’t want to pay too much,” Roelse said. “Ann Lowe deftly managed it all and made a gown that was suitable and a tour de force of her skills, but one that Jackie ultimately didn’t like. She was trying to please everyone.”
In 2024, Sony’s Tristar film announced that Ann Lowe is getting a biopic, with support from Serena Williams and Ruth E. Carter. Titled “The Dress,” the film will be based on Piper Huguley’s historical fiction book “By Her Own Design” and focus on Lowe’s experience creating Jackie Kennedy’s wedding dress.
“Ann’s contributions to fashion have long been overlooked, and we are in a moment where stories like hers must be unlocked and celebrated,” Carter said at the time of the announcement. “As a trailblazer in my own right, I understand firsthand the challenges and triumphs of breaking barriers. Through her story, we hope to inspire future generations to dream, push boundaries, and know that they too can achieve greatness, just as she did.”
How Did Jackie Kennedy Feel About Her Wedding Dress?
“When you watch the footage from their wedding, it looks like you’re watching a film,” presidential historian Alexis Coe says in CNN’s “American Dynasty: The Kennedys” documentary series. “Everything seems perfect; everyone seems at ease. And yet we learn later that Jackie was pretty unhappy with the wedding.”
The Kennedy wedding was used as an opportunity to “invite people who will be able to benefit [John F. Kennedy] as he eventually runs for President of the United States,” per Kennedy biographer Laurence Leamer.
Jacqueline and John F. Kennedy walk down the church aisle shortly after their wedding ceremony on Sept. 12, 1953 in Newport, R.I.
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At the wedding, the bride was met with “thousands of people literally at her reception she doesn’t know because they’ve been invited by her father-in-law. And she’s wearing a dress that she doesn’t care for, that she says made her look like a lampshade,” said Barbara Perry, director, presidential studies at the University of Virginia Miller Center.
Presidential historian Alexis Coe surmised in “American Dynasty: The Kennedys” CNN documentary series that “Jackie would’ve liked to have chosen her own dress, but that’s simply not how it worked out. Joe Senior chose her dress. If Jackie didn’t know that she wasn’t just marrying a person but a family before the wedding, she definitely learned during the planning process that this was a group affair.”
Where Is Jackie Kennedy’s Wedding Dress Today?
Jackie Kennedy’s wedding dress remains at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston, Mass. The gown last appeared in public in 2003, to commemorate what would have been Jackie and John F. Kennedy’s 50th wedding anniversary.
Caroline, left, and Ted Kennedy admire Jackie Kennedy’s wedding dress on exhibition at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in May 1997.
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Now too delicate for public display, the dress is preserved out of sight to maintain its fabric and form. Replicas, however, have been made. The National First Ladies Library and Museum displayed a reproduction of the dress during its “Beyond Camelot: The Life and Legacy of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis,” which opened on May 1, 2023, and closed on April 20, 2024.