Jenny Kee AO (b. 1947) is a fashion designer and an Australian style icon. Born in Bondi in 1947, she is the great-granddaughter, on her father's side, of a couple who migrated from Guangdong, China to Cooktown, Queensland during the gold rush of the 1870s. On her mother's side she is of Italian-English descent. Kee started studying fashion design at East Sydney Technical College but left before gaining her qualification and was eighteen when she headed to London. She spent the remainder of the 1960s there, modelling and working for the antique clothing dealer Vern Lambert at the Chelsea Antique Market. 'For me, Chelsea market was the school of fashion and life … we didn't just flog frocks and style ourselves, we styled everyone who came in, from Mick Jagger to Marianne Faithfull. It was like directing wardrobe on a movie set called The Sixties', Kee said in 2006.
She returned to Sydney in 1972. In 1973 she opened the now-legendary boutique Flamingo Park in Sydney's Strand Arcade. Around the same time she met Melbourne-born designer Linda Jackson, who shared her passion for vintage styles and her reverence for the artistry and skill inherent in the bespoke and the handmade. Jackson and Kee also connected through a deep love of nature, and the pair established a creative partnership that redefined the Australian fashion landscape, creating exuberant designs which were distinct in their bold use of Australian motifs and iconography: a blue linen suit appliqued with the sails of the Sydney Opera House, for instance; a silk chiffon slip decorated with hand-painted images of tropical fish; the Scribbly Gum tunic shedding strips of silk bark; or the chunky, handknitted dresses and jumpers adorned with rosellas, koalas, waratahs, cockatoos and sprigs of wattle. Kee and Jackson famously showcased their work with the 'Flamingo Follies' fashion parades and collaborated with artists such as Peter Tully and David McDiarmid among others.
Following the conclusion of her business partnership with Jackson in 1982, Kee pursued a number of successful independent projects. Flamingo Park closed in 1995. Kee published her autobiography, A Big Life, in 2006, and at Mercedes Benz Australian Fashion Week 2012 she launched her first solo show in more than three decades. In 2015, she partnered with Woolmark to launch an Australian merino capsule collection inspired by her past designs, including the 'Blinky' koala jumper famously worn by Princess Diana in 1982. In March 2016, Kee's collaboration with Jackson was showcased in the National Gallery of Victoria's exhibition 200 Years of Australian Fashion; and in 2019 the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, staged Step Into Paradise, the first retrospective of their work. Kee was named an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2018.
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