Jenny Kee and Linda Jackson : step into paradise

Australians have always had an ambivalent relationship with what is unique about their country. Even as they delighted in the colorful tapestry of its birdlife and wildflowers, artists of the British penal colony struggled with the harsh light and unfamiliar landscape, the odd-looking marsupials that carried their young in a pouch and mammals that laid eggs. These were subjects that needed to be tamed in delicate illustrations of tasteful hues or domesticated as kitsch items to decorate the home. Certainly, they were not considered appropriate source material for fashionable dress, which remained in thrall to London and Paris until well into the twentieth century. Even though an emerging Australian fashion industry saw local designers find success in international markets by the 1960s, as the pages of Australian Vogue attest, the clothes they designed could have come from anywhere. Jenny Kee and Linda Jackson changed everything.