Paige Murphy looks at the enduring legacy of Jenny Kee and Linda Jackson.
Flamingo Park might have closed its doors decades ago, but Jenny Kee and Linda Jackson have forged a legacy that will live on for years to come.
Crowned the matriarchs of Australian fashion, it has been almost 50 years since Jenny Kee and Linda Jackson first began their creative love affair.
Made officers of the Order of Australia last year, it’s safe to say their impact on the local fashion industry has been like no other.
It all began in 1973 at the Bonython Gallery where Jackson was holding an exhibition and Kee had recently returned from London. Both had been told about the other, with mutual friends insisting they had to meet.
“Jenny walks in the door, my Chinese princess comes in and it was [such] an immediate, fabulous attraction that we're still standing here today,” Jackson said at the opening of the Powerhouse Museum’s exhibition Jenny Kee and Linda Jackson: Step Into Paradise.
The exhibition features over 150 garments, textiles, photographs and artworks in an immersive re-imagination of Kee’s famous Flamingo Park Frock Salon.
Forging an immediate partnership, Kee began to house Jackson’s designs in her new store and the pair also launched the
Flamingo Follies fashion parade - the first being held in their favourite yum cha restaurant the Hingara in Chinatown.
“We chose it because it was so heavenly kitsch,” Kee told Ragtrader.
“We gave the audience yum cha and then cleared away the tables and that became the catwalk.”
The shows went on to be held in a number of locations including Bondi Pavilion and the Jamison Street Nightclub.
In an era long before social media, Kee’s boutique in the Strand Arcade had gained international acclaim and became a must-visit attraction for anybody who is anybody visiting Sydney. Named after Kee’s ex-husband Michael Ramsden’s painting
Flamingo Park, the store was visited by everyone from David Bowie to Lauren Bacall.
But to Kee, it didn’t matter who they were.
“When people come in and you're the creator, there's a level of mutual respect,” Kee says.
“It doesn't matter how famous someone is, they're coming in because they're being told this is the place to go.”
Other fans included Princess Diana and Karl Lagerfeld. In 1982, Lagerfeld even sought Kee’s permission to use her Black and White Opal print for his first ready-to-wear collection for Chanel.
Only open for ten years though, Kee likens Flamingo Park’s impact to that of The Beatles, who similarly were only together for eight years.
“The impact and the amount of work that we put out in that time is quite phenomenal,” she says.
Heavily inspired by Australiana, Kee and Jackson have both professed their love for the country’s landscape. They travelled to places like Uluru, Broome, the Great Barrier Reef and Jackson, in particular, spent a lot of time in Indigenous communities.
While other designers sought inspiration from what was trending overseas, Jackson says she and Kee were busy exploring what was on offer at home.
“We weren't even looking to there [overseas] at all whatsoever but trying to be creative and inventive in whatever we could do in our own country and around us [which] was really challenging people,” she says.
Agreeing with Jackson, Kee says their love affair with Australia is part of their DNA.
“For 50 years of work, we have continuously been inspired by this land,” she notes.
Though they were internationally renowned, Kee and Jackson weren’t running a big production with most garments being bespoke or made in limited quantities.
“People didn't realise, I think because we became so well-known around the world, in those early days that it was actually quite tiny and small,” Jackson says.
“It wasn't a huge manufacturing business that sold all around the world at all.”
While sustainability may sound like a buzzword in the fashion industry today, for Kee and Jackson it was ingrained in everything they did from day one.
Every garment was made on-shore in Australia and textiles were sourced locally where possible. All the fabrics they used were natural or vintage and their designs superseded trends, becoming timeless pieces that are still intact today.
“It was one of a kind. The most I ever produced was 20 to 25 jumpers a week because they took two to three weeks to make,” Kee explains.
“I didn't have a team of 100 knitters in China. They were all fantastic Australian pensioners sitting there knitting making their life colourful and joyful.
“We cared about the quality. That's why they're all sitting there because of the quality.”
Today, their legacy lives on not only at the Powerhouse Museum exhibition but also through the work of Romance Was Born designers Anna Plunkett and Luke Sales. Kee refers to them as the “babies” of herself and Jackson.
“People said to me when they had their first show, you've got to meet these people,” she says.
“You've got to see these two incredible young people. They’re doing like you, but they're not you, they're doing it different.
“They could be our children and actually I feel of them as the new creative talents of this country.”
Over the years Kee and Jackson have collaborated with Plunkett and Sales, including last year when Kee worked with them to create their first couture collection which was shown in Paris. Their work together can be spotted among the exhibition, as can
Kee’s designs for the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games - some of which have been unseen until now.
After meeting Jackson and opening Flamingo Park, Kee says her work for the Olympics was the second biggest highlight of her career.
“It was just a joy to work on such a scale, to such a crowd and to know that the Powerhouse has got the garments now - that really have never been seen - it's just the icing on the cake,” she says.
With so many monumental moments over their careers, Jackson and Kee admit seeing it all together in the exhibition has been a huge surprise for them both.
“We've been a bit surprised when we've looked in some of the draws here,” Jackson says.
“I've seen all of Jenny's work that I would have seen many years ago and going ‘Oh my god, this is amazing’.”
Beyond being awestruck by each other’s work, they hope to inspire the next generation to carry on their love for Australia.
“We've lived that life and we wanted to keep influencing young people to understand and to love this country,” Kee says.
“[We want them] to love nature, to feel that they're part of nature because that's how we feel. We want that to be a legacy of what we've done to carry on to the ‘littlies’.
“I keep seeing it through the eyes of a five-year-old. Looking up and I think that five-year-old, they'll never forget. They'll never forget when they walk into that show, and that really is the biggest joy that that we could both have is knowing that we've made an impact on a very young person.”