A love of Australiana helped make fashion designer Jenny Kee a cultural icon. In the 1980s her koala knitwear was made famous by Princess Diana, while David Bowie was a regular at her Flamingo Park Frock Salon in Sydney.
Now Kee is unearthing some of her archival prints for an apparel and homewares collaboration with Aussie label Kip & Co.
Her much-loved Goddess and Opal motifs salute Kee’s design career – though the results are a little more homely than the high fashion of yesteryear. From bedspreads and tea towels to chic silk shirts and pyjamas, it’s a celebration of colour as much as it is a chance to bring the ’80s back. You’ll also find brightly coloured make-up purses that can easily double as a bold clutch to boost your sartorial game.
“My designs are timeless because they’re art,” Kee says. “It’s never been about the commercial aspect for me as I don’t do trends or seasons. That’s why working with Kip & Co appealed because they’re three women in business doing great things. We’ve been trying to do this since they launched [in 2012] and the timing has worked for me now.”
Kee pays homage to womanhood in the Goddess print; Isis, Aphrodite, Quan Yin, Kali, Marilyn Monroe and Anna Piaggi are her heroines, all painterly perfect on a 1980s silk scarf design, now centred defiantly on a bedspread.
“The final bedspread result exceeded all expectations, and I love how Kip & Co embraced my complicated design strengths and didn’t shy from using them in a collection,” Kee says.
There are silk pyjamas in the mix this season, but Kee says she’s secretly holding out for a flannelette version too.
Her iconic vintage knits can fetch up to $4000 on fashion resale marketplaces, and Kee admits she likes to look online and see what other ridiculous prices people are asking. “I feel quite special to be in the league of being collectable.
“The jumpers are skyrocketing – anything that’s Jenny from the past is fetching huge dollars. I started designing in the 1960s, opened a shop in 1973 and by the time you get to nearly 80 – as I am – it’s quite a feat, really, to be considered collectable. I certainly didn’t anticipate that when I was making fashion back when.”
The 77-year-old, who lives in the Blue Mountains, is about to head to the Himalayas for a silent Buddhist retreat, where she’ll walk to a peak of 4100 metres to enter a silent cave for reflection. She’s been a few times before but, of course, getting older makes her wonder if this will be her last time.
“Everyone has a different way of being in the world and I seek spiritual sustenance by going to the Himalayas,” Kee says. “And the crazier the world is, the more I crave a peaceful existence and wish it for everyone.”
Thousands of waratahs are in full bloom in her backyard, and birds chirp in the background during our interview. Kee says she’s busy working through her archives and is often surprised at how much she has made over the decades. Right now she’s sifting through collected fabrics and recycling them to make new gowns.
“I am not in the raging creativity of my life like I was when aged in my thirties, forties and fifties,” she says. “But this feels more important and has more meaning for me right now. That’s because I am taking in pieces and recycling them [into] new gowns as an expression of me.
“Doing the homeware collection is also the beginning of a new working relationship too. For me it’s about doing things with people who come from the same place of passion as I do. That’s what makes it exciting for me.”
This article first appeared in Domain Review, in partnership with Broadsheet.
