Costume jewellers Butler & Wilson prove that you don't have to spend a fortune to look a million dollars. John Walsh celebrates.

A Christian hospital worker who was ordered to remove a crucifix "which could harbour infection" has left her job in protest.

A man in a chic fedora hat walked into a celebrity jewellers a few metres from the French justice ministry produced a gun and walked away with necklaces and watches worth €6.6m.

Fashion is nothing if not a wilfully contrary beast, so it should come as no great surprise that gold is the colour of the spring/summer season. Yes, when the going get tough, the tough tout gold and, recession or no recession, verily it is a gorgeous thing to behold.

London Fashion Week’s ultra-hip kid sister, Fashion East, has already given us Richard Nicholl, Henry Holland and Jonathan Saunders. This year, it’s the ladies’ turn to shine

As the woeful economy eats into the sales figures and incomes of retailers, forcing many household brands into the hands of receivers, one profession remains aloof from the credit crunch.

Want something big, sparkly and on-trend for Christmas? Read our magpie's guide

For anyone still feeling flush despite financial failures, busted banks and reams of redundancies, this could be a great way to waste some wedge. It's an 8GB memory stick covered with a 24-carat gold. Tasteful it's not, but if you're still willing to spend the equivalent of £400 on a blinging piece of computer kit, then subtlety and moderation probably aren't your most obvious virtues. Hilariously, it comes with a chain so it can be worn as a necklace and is sold encased in a plush velvet presentation box. A golden USB drive is definitely God's way of telling you that you have too much money... www.supertalent.com

Move over it-bags – this season, costume jewellery makes the ultimate statement. The bolder the better, says Harriet Walker

When 20 teens took a crash course in styling from TV makeover guru Gok Wan, chaos and clashes followed...

Celebrities looking to grab the limelight on the red carpet can breathe a sigh of relief. After a few seasons of covered-up, romantic collections, Roberto Cavalli has returned to the "molto sexy" look for which he is best known, albeit with a lighter touch and no animal print. Perhaps the credit crisis has forced him to use less fabric, or maybe the designer could no longer repress his unofficial motto that if you've got it – and maybe even if you haven't – flaunt it.

The near-unbearable pressure caused by rampant British track success could not deter the women's sprint star Victoria Pendleton from taking her country's seventh cycling gold medal yesterday.

Trench coats are my main investment each season; my wardrobe is full of them. I found this one on one of my weekly pilgrimages to Portobello Road in west London. I love to customise pieces, to make them personal to me. I took off all the old buttons on this coat and added odd vintage ones, mixed with a few taken from other outfits. Now it feels really special.