QUESTION 1 - How did you become interested in the subject of African American designers? Was there a particular fact that intrigued you and made you want to do more research on the topic?

ANSWER 1 - My mother, Eloise Reed, who graduated from University of Pennsylvania [I'm from Philadelphia], was an art teacher who also loved fabrics and clothing. She taught me how to sew, and I later designed accessories, bracelets, jewelry, etc. I was living in Jamaica, WI (my interest at Temple U was history and anthropology, and I was working in Jamaica... did design as an aside business).

QUESTION 2 - Describe the book's layout/content...does it include interviews? anecdotes from designers' lives?

ANSWER2 - book is 38 profiles, separate chapters of women from 1850 to the present who contributed in some way to the world of fashion. Interviews, research, etc. from the actual designers, or from their families, or libraries.

QUESTION 3 - Is there any fact/story/designer that you think will really surprise readers, even those who are somewhat familiar with fashion design?

ANSWER 3 - Many people did not know Ann Lowe, born in Alabama, who designed for the Governor's wife in 1910+ and who later moved to Tampa, Fla, and then to NYC, designed Jackie Kennedy's wedding dress..the most photographed wedding dress in America's history... many fashion teachers didn't know that.

QUESTION 4 - Do you have a favorite out of the (38) women you profiled? Anyone you found especially inspiring?

ANSWER4 - I thought Annie Malone, of St. Louis, Chicago fame [there is a street and orphanage and a women's business parade named after her today in St. Louis... She started as a teenager to sew for people, then used her high school knowledge of chemistry to find a hair and scalp oil in the 1900s. She did so well that she made the oil-pomade, packaged it, had sales people, started Poro Hair schools and finally sold around the US, WI, and in Africa, until she was grossing over $28 million in the early 1920s... Her husband even sued her for divorce for $1 million. he only got $100,00 in 1928 !! She died at 83, in 1957. She had trained and then passed the better-known Madame C. J. Walker, who never grossed more than $500,000 a year. However, Walker died early at 53 years old .

QUESTION 5 - What do you think is the reason for the misdocumentation of the contributions of African American designers? Does it continue today?

ANSWER 5 - Racism is the cause of most of the black lost in history. Librarians, scholars hardly cared about Blacks until the 1970s. Research almost stops earlier than 1970. You get list of people doing things, census, etc....but not informal, cultural history...the kind of history that rounds out the
information about a people..the people who make up the fabric of history.
Pictures you can get from the this web site [ click here ], or on Ann Lowe: http://www.designerhistory.com/historyofashion/lowe.html
I am providing a story of Annie Malone too.