How David Jones destroyed its greatest asset and signed its own death warrant

How David Jones destroyed its greatest asset and signed its own death warrant
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How David Jones destroyed its greatest asset and signed its own death warrant
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Diana Jenkins
First published
24 April 2026, 11:53am
A once-famous ‘lady in black’ ushers shoppers into a David Jones sale. Picture: Dean Martin
OPINION
All the panicking David Jones bean counters, analysts and private equity prats can officially call time on their hand-wringing. Any idiot – and certainly any customer – can tell you why we are witnessing the tragic death spiral of Australia’s once great lady of retail.
It’s not the cost of living. And it’s not the tough retail market. And it’s not the steady march of consumers fleeing in favour of online shopping. Or at least it’s not really (or just) these things – and we know it’s not because some bricks and mortar retailers have never been more popular.
Whoever is running this herringbone hellscape can dress the windows with overpriced aspirational apparel as much as they like but the truth is that today’s David Jones is rotten on the inside.
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They can reorient the escalators, adjust the lighting, polish the floors and try every trick sold at an unattended Hail Mary cosmetic counter but no amount of surface concealer can hide the pox that has poisoned Australia’s premier department store.
In happier times, David Jones was an oasis of style and charm. It was the object lesson in old fashioned etiquette and deportment, an exemplar of certain principles that were as timeless as they were true, and which boil down to this: the most beautiful girl in the world will never be queen if she’s mean.
The shoppers are still out there looking for that old school style and charm. Picture: Dean Martin
And make no mistake. The David Jones of 2026, despite all that glitters, is downright mean. It’s also desperately unpopular as a result, if its sales figures are anything to go by. But the uglies moved in long ago – you can date the whole steaming dropped pie to the ill-fated day they decided to decentralise customer service.
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Just last week, I ducked in after work hoping to replace a MAC lip pencil I lost at a wedding the previous Saturday night during a spirited retro spin to Murder on the Dance Floor. With the song still bouncing in my mind, I looked around David Jones and realised I was looking at murder on the ground floor instead.
Back in its decades-long heyday, David Jones’ customer service was rightly legendary. A visit to David Jones when I was a kid and into my 20s was almost like visiting a venerable public institution, so esteemed was the store. It was so effortlessly elegant in a way few things were anymore, an elegance that elevated everyone who entered its hallowed halls.
And the fatal misunderstanding of all these money men who have jointly signed David Jones’ death warrant in this long winter of discontent seems to stem from what was once its greatest asset other than the impressive downtown real estate holdings: the women in black.
Perhaps by their very professionalism, discretion and valour, they remained a little unseen. Perhaps, in their modesty, their critical importance was missed. Because for the millions of Australians of multiple generations who remember our beloved David Jones stores the way they once were, we know the truth: it’s the women in black who themselves must now be mourned.
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These smooth, black-clad professionals manned their departments with military precision, impeccable manners and a deep knowledge of every item for sale on their watch. They knew the range of products – whatever the brand – inside out. They would gracefully, swiftly cross the floor to render assistance. They would listen carefully, with an almost forensic acuity, then guide you with skill across the vast array of apparel to deliver you with precision to the very thing you were looking for, sometimes without even knowing it, your satisfied purchase a foregone conclusion. They moved at a pace set to a speed that was soothing instead of unseemly, in which the customer was propelled but never pushed.
The height of glamour: A David Jones in store fashion show, at Rundle Mall, Adelaide, 1990.
Really, they practised an art form of sorts. They were body artists, moving in space through David Jones stores across the country in a way that suggested they weren’t simply in the place but were of it, entirely inseparable from their retail church and its true believers.
Well, they’ve been separated from it now, that’s for sure. Or bluntly severed, I should say, like a decapitated head leaving a body as heavily and suddenly as an apple falling from a tree.
Who are these women now, who dare to wear the signature black? These sour impostors, masquerading as women in black but the poorest possible imitation of them. An insult to those peerless professionals upon whose slim shoulders they now slouch.
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But they won’t be standing for long, will they, these, hostile sentinels reluctantly manning empty counters, refusing to assist customers because they “don’t work for that brand and don’t work for David Jones either.”
Huh?
Sorry, what? But you’re … a woman in black?
“I work for [insert cosmetic, fashion, homewares brand]. I don’t work for David Jones.”
So … you can’t help me?
“No.”
And if you ask if you can pay – “Can I give you my money, so I can purchase this piece of merchandise being sold in this store?” – these “sales assistants” (epic misnomer) have all perfected this peculiar routine, the steps of which are specifically choreographed as follows:
1. Show irritation with eyeroll and blowing out cheeks.
2. Swivel on the spot multiple times with pursed lips looking for someone in this service wasteland who can run up the sale
3. Make an audible “Tsk” of irritation, then turn on heel and march to a register.
4. Complete the transaction without eye contact or conversation, unless there is an opportunity to talk to someone in order to ignore all the customers now queuing to pay because finally someone is behind a register – “ignoring the line of customers” is a bonus point round to be seized with rarely seen enthusiasm.
5. Throw purchase into bag like you’re slopping food onto a tray in a maximum-security prison cafeteria.
6. Say nothing.
7. Walk away from waiting customers and return to the safety of third-party vendor trench.
8. Return to scrolling because there are no customers and never wonder if it’s because of you because you couldn’t care less.
David Jones stores are more sparsely populated these days. Picture: Matt Loxton
But last week I found an endangered species. This was a confirmed sighting of a woman in black. She wasn’t working for MAC, she explained, but after watching me be rebuffed like the silver ball pinging around a pinball machine, lurching from one cosmetic counter to another, only to be variously ignored or waved back to the resolutely unattended MAC counter, she took pity on me, retrieved some keys, and together we faced the dwindling range.
“Hopefully we’ll still have what you’re looking for,” she said brightly. “MAC is leaving the store, so we won’t be getting new stock and that’s why they don’t have a sales person here.”
Again, as customers, we don’t care. All we know is, no one will help us.
But this woman in black wanted to help me, and I was interested to hear of all the vendors jumping from the decks of this gilded Titanic.
The woman in black opened every drawer, every door. Unlock, scan, riffle, lock, move on. Every single one. There were no labels and she didn’t know where anything was because … basic problem outlined as above.
But she would not give up.
I said, “This business model is insane.”
She cheerf…

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