Image of the week: Fashion bells The casually attired men in the picture – David Schneider, Robert Gentz and Rubin Ritter – are directors of Zalando, Europe's biggest online fashion retailer. The company's power base is Germany, where its IPO this week was one of the country's biggest flotations in years. The Berlin-based company, backed by the Samwer brothers, started life six years ago by selling shoes and it now ships 1,500 brands to customers in 15 countries. The stock surged on its debut, before shedding most of its gains faster than an angora sweater sheds its wool. Photograph: Ralph Orlowski/Reuters
In numbers: Sex, drugs and economic data £6.62b
n
Spending on illegal drugs boosted the UK economy by this much last year, new estimates from the UK government’s statistics body suggest. The number exceeds the sum spent on beer and spirits.
£5.65b
n
Spending on the services of prostitutes added about this much to the UK economy last year, exceeding consumers’ outlay on their own personal grooming.
0.9%
Rise in the UK’s GDP in the second quarter of 2014. Spending on “illegal activities” have been made part of the official calculations for the first time.
The lexic
on: Windows 9
After an, ahem, mixed reaction to Windows 8,
Microsoft
unveiled its latest operating system this week, and not unreasonably, the tech media trailed the launch with speculative pieces about what “Windows 9” might look like. But Microsoft went straight to Windows 10. So what happened to Windows 9? “Did the whole 9 team leave in the recent clearout?” wondered the BBC’s technology correspondent, Rory Celllan-Jones. Is nine an unlucky number for new Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella? Most likely, the numeral skipping was a way to convey the idea of how much the company has “moved on” from the woes of Windows 8. Because it’s that easy.
Getting to know: Miuccia Prada
On trend for autumn-winter 2014-2015: tax probes. Milan-based fashion designer Miuccia Prada, the woman behind the Prada and Miu Miu lines, and her husband
Patrizio Bertelli
, have been told by Italian tax authorities that they are looking into “the accuracy of certain past tax filings by them as individuals, in respect of foreign owned companies”. The investigation isn’t great timing for Prada and her chief executive husband, who are trying to turn around a sharp fall in profits at the Hong Kong-listed luxury group.
