The grand old dame of Australian department stores is on life support: David Jones has been put into administration over unpaid rent at some of its thirty-eight Australian and New Zealand stores, after an illustrious career that even saw a former prime minister (almost) work for them.
Having been elected to parliament at just 25, former prime minister Paul Keating spent most of his non-working life in politics, though not all of it. In 1967, a mere two years before winning the federal seat of Blaxland, he had a job as a shop assistant at the Bankstown David Jones' in Sydney. An "apparently surly 22-year-old", he was dismissed for being deemed "unsatisfactory", according to the retailer's official history published in 2013 as "175 Years David Jones'" by Helen O'Neill.
The book is very surprising, as it not just focuses on the start of the David Jones store (affectionately known as DJ’s), but also delves into its archives to find photos of a youthful Sydney CBD. There are wonderful photos of the GPO tower being built in Martin Place and photos of the first DJ’s on the corner of Barrack and George Streets, looking onto Martin Place. For the fashionista, there is in-depth coverage of the famous models who were the face of DJ’s, and colour plates of the glorious clothing imported by DJ’s from France after WWII. The human side of the store is illuminating too, with stories of David Jones taking a risk and immigrating to Sydney, his staff who worked all of their lives at DJ’s (and were immensely proud of their tenure) and the restrictions caused by shortages during both Wars.
What is not surprising, since everything at David Jones is expensive, is that the book is still for sale on ebay for as much as a hundred dollars.
To me, David Jones - or David Jones' as it was then - is synonymous with my early life in Australia when I sat at my desk inside the ANZ Bank and looked across Alinga Street to Canberra's David Jones' store front inside Australia’s first enclosed mall, which had opened only two years earlier.
It had saved me many Mondays after I had once again failed to put my dirty washing through the machine, and got to work in a dirty shirt. A quick dash across to David Jones' fixed me up with one of their "For Service"-labelled white shirts (no coloured shirts in them days!) which, despite the fact that one could still detect the tiny holes from the pins that had held it together in the package, looked a lot better than two sweat-stained armpits. Yes, "there was no other store like David Jones'".
So how did a once prestigious store get itself into administation? As digital retailing boomed, bricks and mortar stores began to flounder. By 2014, the department stores' profound challenges led David Jones and Myer to explore a possible merger. The talks ended when the South African retailing conglomerate, Woolworths Holdings Limited, acquired David Jones in April 2014 for A$2.1 billion. After almost a decade of frustrating results, Woolworths Holdings sold David Jones for just $100 million to its current owner, private equity firm Anchorage Capital Partners. I have made similar investments in the past, although not on that scale, but with worse outcomes as I got no money back at all.
My own theory is that the rot set in when David Jones' dropped the cursive (that's joined-up, Des) writing and the possessive apostrophe in their name. While I concede that today's generation can barely write, let alone cursive, Australian's still absolutely love their apostrophe's.
They have them in meat pie's and pizza's when they're looking for the special's in the supermarket's on the weekend's. Even taxis in Batemans Bay display TAXI DRIVER'S WANTED in their rear window's. You deprive Australian's of their apostrophe's, David Jones, and you pay the price!
There's no more store like David Jones.
P.S. As always, our resourceful government has found the solution:
