Mum's PRECIOUS LEGACY

When Lorraine Wood died she left the most important thing in her world to her daughters’ care. Fleur Wood and Frances Hansen tell Juliet Rieden why they feel privileged to keep their mother’s spirit burning bright.

- Juliet Rieden

Less than a month after Lorraine Wood turned 80 she hired a cruise ship to sail her family and close friends around the Fijian Islands. It was a celebration and a goodbye, and as her daughters Fleur Wood and Frances Hansen talk about those joyous four days, they are laughing and wiping away tears simultaneously.

“In true Mum style she flew 70 people over. She was quite unwell but she pushed through it and we really had the most incredible week together as a family with lifelong friends,” says Fleur. “It was called the Fijian Princess and it was just us. There were 35 cabins and we took over the whole ship,” says Frances smiling.

The photos are jubilant, showing generations of a family partying together in a tropical paradise. They’re a complicated, blended band but surprisingly close. Fleur, best known as one of Sydney’s most successful fashion designers and creative entrepreneurs who, these days, lives in New York with her husband and children and is the founder of refugee charity Ads-Up, is the only child of Lorraine and Bill Wood. Respected artist Frances and her three sisters are from Lorraine’s first marriage. There are also three other sisters from Bill’s first marriage. “It’s like the Brady Bunch, only we’re eight girls,” laughs Frances, who is sixth in the line-up.