Jackie Kennedy’s Wedding Dress That Made History

Jack­ie Kennedy wore a silk taffe­ta gown designed by Ann Lowe when she mar­ried Pres­i­dent John F. Kennedy in 1953.

The cou­ple tied the knot on Sep­tem­ber 12, 1953, in a lav­ish New­port, Rhode Island cel­e­bra­tion that is still remem­bered as one of the most glam­orous wed­dings of the 20th cen­tu­ry. Jack­ie stunned in an ivory silk taffe­ta gown with a por­trait neck­line, bouf­fant skirt, and del­i­cate embell­ish­ments of rosettes and wax flow­ers. The time­less cre­ation was designed by African Amer­i­can fash­ion design­er Ann Lowe, whose artistry brought Jackie’s vision to life.

More than sev­en decades lat­er, the gown remains one of Jackie’s most icon­ic fash­ion state­ments. While her pill­box hats and ele­gant tai­lored out­fits defined her White House years and influ­enced fash­ion through­out the 1960s and 1970s, her wed­ding dress set the tone for her life­long rep­u­ta­tion as a style icon.

Life mag­a­zine cap­tured the fairy-tale moment, doc­u­ment­ing the cer­e­mo­ny at St. Mary’s Church attend­ed by more than 600 guests and a grand recep­tion of 900. JFK wore a tra­di­tion­al morn­ing suit with tails and pin­stripe trousers, com­ple­ment­ing Jackie’s grace­ful look.

Today, Jack­ie Kennedy’s wed­ding gown is still cel­e­brat­ed not only for its roman­tic design but also for the way it sym­bol­ized the begin­ning of a new Amer­i­can era. Her bridal style con­tin­ues to inspire design­ers and brides around the world, prov­ing that true ele­gance nev­er fades.

Jack­ie’s wed­ding dress was designed by Ann Lowe 

Jack­ie Kennedy’s wed­ding dress was designed by Ann Lowe, an incred­i­bly tal­ent­ed African Amer­i­can fash­ion design­er who, for many years, did not receive the recog­ni­tion she deserved.

Lowe was already well known among America’s elite, cre­at­ing gowns for fam­i­lies such as the du Ponts and the Rock­e­fellers. How­ev­er, when Jack­ie mar­ried JFK in 1953, her con­tri­bu­tion went large­ly unac­knowl­edged — in part due to the racial prej­u­dices of the era. It wasn’t until decades lat­er that Ann Lowe’s name began to gain the cred­it and respect it mer­it­ed.

Jackie’s gown, with its ivory silk taffe­ta fab­ric, por­trait neck­line, and bouf­fant skirt, remains one of Lowe’s most icon­ic cre­ations and a time­less mas­ter­piece of clas­sic bridal fash­ion.

Her orig­i­nal gown was destroyed by water dam­age 

Just one week before Jack­ie Kennedy and John F. Kennedy’s high­ly antic­i­pat­ed wed­ding, dis­as­ter struck at design­er Ann Lowe’s stu­dio. Accord­ing to the Nation­al Muse­um of Amer­i­can His­to­ry, a water­line burst and flood­ed the work­space, destroy­ing Jackie’s bridal gown along with nine brides­maid dress­es.

Rather than bur­den the Kennedy fam­i­ly with the set­back, Lowe made a remark­able deci­sion: she kept the inci­dent to her­self and qui­et­ly pur­chased new fab­ric to start over. Jackie’s orig­i­nal gown had tak­en near­ly eight weeks to cre­ate, but Lowe and her ded­i­cat­ed team worked tire­less­ly, remak­ing the intri­cate dress in just five days — a feat that high­light­ed both her skill and her deter­mi­na­tion.

Although Lowe had been set to earn a $700 prof­it, the emer­gency forced her into a stag­ger­ing $2,200 loss, a sig­nif­i­cant sum at the time. Despite the finan­cial hard­ship, her sac­ri­fice ensured that Jack­ie walked down the aisle in the now-icon­ic ivory silk taffe­ta gown that became a sym­bol of ele­gance and grace.

Today, this sto­ry adds an even deep­er lay­er of admi­ra­tion for Ann Lowe. Not only did she craft one of the most famous wed­ding dress­es in Amer­i­can his­to­ry, but she did so under immense pres­sure and per­son­al cost — an untold act of ded­i­ca­tion that helped cement her lega­cy in fash­ion.

The dress fea­tured a pleat­ed bodice and full skir

The ivory wed­ding gown that Jack­ie Kennedy wore down the aisle was a true mas­ter­piece of crafts­man­ship, cre­at­ed from near­ly 50 yards of lux­u­ri­ous silk taffe­ta, accord­ing to the John F. Kennedy Pres­i­den­tial Library and Muse­um. The design fea­tured a grace­ful por­trait neck­line, a full bouf­fant skirt, and a fine­ly pleat­ed bodice that high­light­ed Jackie’s ele­gant fig­ure. A scal­loped hem­line added soft­ness to the dra­mat­ic sil­hou­ette, while over­sized rosettes gave the gown a roman­tic, almost whim­si­cal flair.

In the cen­ter of each rosette, design­er Ann Lowe added del­i­cate wax orange blos­soms — a sig­na­ture detail in her bridal cre­ations that sym­bol­ized puri­ty and joy. These sub­tle yet mean­ing­ful accents reflect­ed Lowe’s metic­u­lous atten­tion to detail and her abil­i­ty to com­bine tra­di­tion with artistry.

Jackie’s gown was not just a wed­ding dress; it was a state­ment of time­less style that blend­ed sophis­ti­ca­tion with fem­i­nin­i­ty. More than sev­en­ty years lat­er, it remains one of the most cel­e­brat­ed bridal gowns in Amer­i­can his­to­ry, admired both for its beau­ty and for the remark­able sto­ry behind its cre­ation.

“Flow­ers were some­thing Ann Lowe returned to again and again,” explained Eliz­a­beth Way, asso­ciate cura­tor at The Muse­um at FIT and author of Black Design­ers in Amer­i­can Fash­ion, in an inter­view with Van­i­ty Fair. “She had an extra­or­di­nary abil­i­ty to sculpt fab­ric, trans­form­ing a flat sur­face into three-dimen­sion­al forms that felt almost life­like.”

This sig­na­ture tech­nique became one of Lowe’s hall­marks, par­tic­u­lar­ly in her bridal and evening gowns. By lay­er­ing fab­ric into rosettes and blos­soms, she cre­at­ed depth, tex­ture, and move­ment, turn­ing her designs into wear­able works of art. The wax orange blos­soms on Jack­ie Kennedy’s gown are just one exam­ple of this dis­tinc­tive artistry — a del­i­cate detail that ele­vat­ed the dress from ele­gant to unfor­get­table.

Jackie’s gown also held a few charm­ing hid­den details. For her tra­di­tion­al “some­thing blue,” Lowe dis­creet­ly stitched a small blue rib­bon into the under­skirt, adding a per­son­al touch that would remain unseen to the pub­lic. Addi­tion­al­ly, an Ann Lowe label was sewn into the waist­line of the skirt — a sub­tle sig­na­ture mark­ing the designer’s hand­i­work and ensur­ing her artistry would not go entire­ly unrec­og­nized.

These thought­ful details reflect­ed Lowe’s atten­tion to both tra­di­tion and crafts­man­ship, turn­ing the gown into not just a state­ment of style but also a work rich with per­son­al and artis­tic sig­nif­i­cance.

Inter­est­ing­ly, Jack­ie report­ed­ly did not per­son­al­ly choose her wed­ding dress. Accord­ing to accounts from the time, her moth­er, Janet Lee Bou­vi­er, played a sig­nif­i­cant role in select­ing the gown, work­ing close­ly with Ann Lowe to final­ize the design. Despite Jackie’s min­i­mal involve­ment in the deci­sion-mak­ing, the dress per­fect­ly reflect­ed her time­less ele­gance and would go on to become one of the most icon­ic bridal gowns in his­to­ry.

This detail adds anoth­er lay­er to the sto­ry of the gown: even with­out choos­ing it her­self, Jackie’s poise and style brought the cre­ation to life, prov­ing that the right design­er can cap­ture a bride’s essence with­out direct input.