A London restaurant has come up with a novel idea to drum up custom in the economic downturn: letting customers decide how much they want to pay for their meal.

The Little Bay restaurant in Farringdon is offering the all-you-can-eat deal for the rest of this month, to cater for credit crunch hit workers from the nearby City financial district.

“It’s entirely up to each customer whether they give 100 pounds or a penny,” said owner Peter Ilic. “All I’m asking is they pay me what they think the food and service is worth.

Burberry has ditched the gloomy, melancholy theme of their recent fall ad campaign and went with a sunny, bright greenhouse full of greenery and plants for the official Spring 2009 ads.

The campaign was shot by Mario Testino at Petersham Nurseries, a posh garden center outside London.

“I wanted the mood to be gentle, relaxed, romantic and about a quiet, beautiful sense of luxury,” explained Burberry creative director Christopher Bailey. “This campaign highlights the spirit of our wonderfully crumpled classics.” Via wwd

London’s Victoria & Albert Museum is currently hosting a rather decadent exhibition, of luxury lost called the Magnificence of the Tsars.

This exhibition illustrates Russia’s relationship with her past and with Europe through two centuries of men’s court dress.

It is curated and mounted by the Moscow Kremlin Museums. Together with the Armoury Chamber, they form Russia’s oldest national treasury, founded in 1806.

With luxury brands maturing in their home markets, Luxury Interactive taking place March 16-18, 2009 at Le Meridien Piccadilly in London is dedicating an entire day to international expansion opportunities.

Especially now that traditional markets such as Europe and North America have slowed down and several emerging markets showing continued growth in the luxury tier, it is becoming increasingly interesting for luxury brands to explore new markets.

During the Emerging Luxury Markets Summit on Monday, 16 March 2009, we take a closer look at the practical challenges luxury companies encounter when positioning their brands in Russia, the Middle East, China and India.

London was yesterday, the official home of Britain’s largest shopping mall with the launch of the $2.8 billion Westfield London Shopping Centre in Shepherd’s Bush , a massive 265-store, glass-roofed shopping center. The centre’s owners, Westfield and Commerzbank AG are confident that the looming British recession, the worst since 1991 will not negatively affect the potential profits of the centre’s future.

Steven Lowy, managing director of Australian based Westfield said that the project was built with the future in mind. The new mall is targeted to serve 20 million shoppers per year and Westfield aims for sales of £1 billion ($2 billion).

One reason why Westfield managers are so confident about the success of their new mall is the fact that London’s 7.5 million residents were only served by four regional shopping centres. Source overseaspropertymall

This Acrylic resin table conceived by the Freshwest studio was unvelied at London Design Festival, Tent London.

“Pool Table had a serene and calming Zen like quality in the surrounding bustle of the show. The coffee table made from 50mm acrylic with miniature diving board, reflected and refracted light in such a way that it resembled the depth and hue of an actual swimming pool.”