David Jones is hoping its first Melbourne spring flower show in 17 years will lure customers back into its flagship Bourke Street store.

The David Jones Spring Flower Show first launched in 1985, but has its roots in the 1920s, when staff would bring in flowers from their gardens and decorate the counters to celebrate the beginning of spring.

For years the floral displays drew customers into the flagstore store, and with foot traffic down 15 per cent, it is needed more than ever before.

David Jones CEO Scott Fyfe is confident the latest stage of its $50 million renovation, which features a new Tempus Two bar, and Dior, Gucci and Louis Vuitton concessions, will also lure customers in to begin their Christmas shopping early – as is predicted to be the trend this year.

“We’re really optimistic about Christmas,” he told the AFR.

“We’ve got really strong momentum this time compared with last year. But if we look at the trends of 2018-19, we’re ahead of this so far too, but we’re not complacent.

“I think Black Friday and Cyber Monday are going to be huge. We’ve got more fashion. We’ve got more newness. We think people are really going to spend on themselves as well as travel this Christmas.”

The them for this year’s Spring Flower Shop is, somewhat predictably, ‘zero-waste’. To this end, Dutch designer Joost Bakker has spent a year on a front window installation with mealworms eating styofoam packaging and live mushrooms growing.

Quite a sight among those new Gucci stands.