Jenny Kee and Flamingo Park: Independent fashion retailers as creative practitioners

Abstract

Abstract It is contended in this article that independent fashion retailers who display conscious and proactive cultural positioning can be considered as not only retail practitioners, but creative practitioners playing a cultural role in the fashion industry. Australian fashion retailer and designer Jenny Kee is used as a historic example. Kee opened her Flamingo Park retail store in Sydney in 1973 and later became one of Australia’s best-known fashion designers. Using primary sources from the Jenny Kee Archive at the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences in Sydney in addition to Kee’s recollections in her autobiography, Kee’s retail work is viewed through the lens of Bourdieu’s field theory and her position in the field of fashion and role as a cultural intermediary is established. By framing her work in this way, the potential for a fashion retailer to mediate culture for fashion consumers using retailing as their creative practice is demonstrated.