Bella Freud’s Marks & Spencer collection sells out in a day

Marks & Spencer launched its much-anticipated collaboration with Bella Freud on Thursday, with fans quickly buying up items from the 27-piece collection.By lunchtime, coveted items such as the pleated pinstripe skirt had been bought in most sizes from the website, and by Friday morning the majority of the items had sold out in most sizes online. The retailer says the collection will not be restocked.The success of the collection is partially because Freud’s trademark slogan knitwear and retro aesthetic are a good fit with Marks & Spencer. “Freud has such a knack for creating personality-packed pieces that are easy to wear and appealing to all ages,” says Joy Montgomery, the shopping editor at Vogue

This couple has re-created the sights and smells of a Senegalese market in Brooklyn: ‘Experiences keep people coming back’

The Rue Dix marketplace and restaurant in Crown Heights offers Senegalese fashion and flavorNilea Alexander and her husband, Lamine Diagne, started out with a neighborhood coffee shop in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Over the past decade, though, their modest enterprise has evolved into what they call “an experience”. Next door to Café Rue Dix, which serves Senegalese cuisine, pastries and lattes, is Marché Rue Dix, their marketplace-boutique stocked with goods sourced directly from Senegal, Diagne’s birthplace. The couple’s goal is to create a one-stop destination where customers leave with both a story and a piece of Senegal.Rue Dix, or “10th Street” in French, is a nod to Diagne’s roots in Pikine, a city to the east of the Senegalese capital of Dakar

Retail sales growth slows in Great Britain despite tech spending lift

Sales growth in shops in Great Britain slowed last month as an increase in purchases of technology was tempered by the largest monthly fall in spending at supermarkets this year.The last official snapshot of consumer activity before the budget showed a modest 0.3% increase in spending in shops and online – down on August’s 1% increase but better than financial markets had expected.Despite warnings from the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, for the public to be braced for tax increases in the budget on 30 October, the data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) provided evidence of falling inflation and rising real incomes encouraging consumers to spend more freely.Sales growth in the third quarter of 2024 – a better guide to the underlying trend than one month’s figures – rose by 1

Companies House to stop fraudsters joining up under fake names like ‘Darth Vader’

Fraudsters and jokers trying to join the UK’s corporate register under fake names such as “Darth Vader” and “Santa Claus” will be blocked under plans to force directors to provide identification – but campaigners have said the measure is unlikely to stop determined criminals.From autumn next year, individuals incorporating a new company at Companies House will have to provide ID if they are a director or a “person of significant control” (PSC), usually a significant or majority owner of a company.Companies House has long been criticised over a lack of checks and was described as “dysfunctional” by the anti-fraud leader at trade body UK Finance in 2022.Concerns about flaws in the corporate register include fraudsters using fake names to disguise their identity or registering addresses unbeknown to the real occupant.Directors have been registered in the name of “Adolf Tooth Fairy Hitler” and “Judas Superadio Iskariot”, without being questioned

New ‘buy now, pay later’ rules to protect UK shoppers from 2026

Shoppers who use “buy now, pay later” loans are to get new safeguards against unaffordable borrowing and credit card-style protection for their purchases, under rules outlined by the UK government.However, campaigners have questioned why the BNPL changes will not take effect until 2026, warning that consumers need to be “wary” in the meantime.In recent years the market for BNPL has boomed, with many big retailers teaming up with lenders such as Klarna and Clearpay to allow consumers to spread the cost of their purchases.But while the loans, typically advertised at online checkouts, do not attract interest, concerns have grown around the ease with which borrowers can build up unaffordable debt.Research carried out last year by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) found that 14 million people had used BNPL and frequent users were more than four times as likely to have recently missed a payment for a bill or credit commitment than those who had not used the loans

ECB cuts interest rates to support flagging eurozone economy

The European Central Bank has intervened to prevent a sharp slowdown in the eurozone economy with its first back-to-back interest rate cut since the euro crisis in 2011.With Germany on the brink of a recession and inflation tumbling across the 20 member single currency bloc, the ECB followed a reduction in the cost of borrowing at its previous meeting in September with a further 0.25 percentage point cut in its key deposit rate to 3.25%.Marking the third interest rate cut this year, the ECB’s president, Christine Lagarde, said the fall in inflation had surprised the central bank and meant a cut was needed to ensure a soft landing for the eurozone economy