David Jones plumps for Eurasian beauty Gomes

Gomes.

Yesterday news came out that embattled retailer David Jones would drop its long-serving fashion ambassador, 29-year-old  bogan pin-up girl Miranda Kerr, for Jessica Gomes, 28. Gomes' immediate ancestry is half Singaporean-Chinese and half Portuguese, and she grew up in Perth. Her fame has to this point been largely earned overseas, and she's big in Korea where she has her own English-language TV show. She's also a US regular in Sports Illustrated calendar issues (see pic).

David Jones has been struggling financially, reporting full-year profits down in 2012 by 40 percent. Meanwhile, online has six percent of total retail spend in Australia, and the trend there is up. While it would be nice to think that DJs chose Gomes for purely aesthetic reasons, I suspect that it's more to do with finally entering the Asian Century. I can't be too extreme to think that DJs would be looking to capitalise on its new recruit's appeal in Asia, and convert that into higher sales. I can't think of anything wrong with this tactic, because clearly the august retailer needs to do something to stem the blood as consumers rush online - the blogpost linked to above shows that 75 percent of online clothing sales are at small- to medium-sized local outlets - for items traditionally considered the province of brick-and-mortar stores. Consumer spending habits are changing and DJs has to change to keep up. Employing Gomes might give the retailer access to new markets for its high-end clothing lines.