A summer morning in 1977. Jenny Kee's baby daughter tumbled from her tight embrace almost in slow motion as their train lurched and crashed, shards of glass and wooden splinters flying through the air. The Australian fashion legend was one of the passengers aboard the Granville disaster, which killed 84 early morning commuters including an unborn child when their crowded train derailed, demolishing an overhead road bridge.
On 18 January 1977 at Granville, a western suburb of Sydney, a crowded commuter train derailed, running into the supports of a road bridge that collapsed onto two of the train's passenger carriages. The disaster remains the worst rail accident in Australian history; 83 people died and 213 were injured.
But Kee's presence on that fatal journey was itself an accident of timing. She was running late that morning to visit her creative partner and fellow designer Linda Jackson. This simple delay became the margin between tragedy and survival.
The fashion industry's bold Australian voice was only just emerging in 1977. Kee had been at home one morning in 1973 when a friend called to tell her there was a fashion designer visiting from Melbourne whom she must meet. Her name was Linda Jackson and she was showing clothes at the Winter Antique Fair at the Bonython Gallery in Sydney. An antique dealer insisted Kee meet this talented girl, so she got off the couch and went down. The attraction was instant.
After meeting Jackson in 1973, they established a business partnership and opened Flamingo Park Frock Salon, a boutique in The Strand Arcade, Sydney. Kee and Jackson spent much of the 1970s and early 1980s immersing themselves in nature, going on long bushwalks in the Blue Mountains where Jackson photographed Kee modelling her designs. "We were grounded in nature: that was our magic," Kee says. "When we were out walking together doing our meditative shoots it was nature that was guiding us and her beauty has never left us."
On that fateful morning of 18 January 1977, Kee was holding her daughter Grace so tight, that little face so close to her heart. All she could do was get her out of that train as fast as she could. Clambering over and through the wreckage, dodging live power lines, somehow Jenny reached safety up the rail embankment and was rushed to hospital with her toddler.
That partnership would endure and evolve, evidenced by the publication in 2019 of the book Step Into Paradise, the first definitive survey of more than four decades of their creative practice. An ABC documentary of the same name explored the compelling stories and energy around their creative partnership and separate careers after they parted ways in 1981.
The National Gallery of Australia significantly expanded its holdings of Kee's work in June 2025 with the acquisition of over 80 pieces from Kee and Jackson's personal archives. This collection, one of the largest institutional assemblages of their output, features previously unseen ensembles that capture their pioneering fusion of fashion and national identity.
For Kee and Jackson, the bond forged in 1973 was not just professional. Their friendship continues to this day and both have found success in independent projects. The morning that nearly took so much from them instead became a reminder of how fragile life can be, and how the smallest of circumstances can alter everything.