Bally's Pool Party... Clear Motives... Moussaieff Makes a Move...

DIFFERENT STYLES: New Valentino creative directors Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli are keeping mum about their much-anticipated fashion direction for the house until their debut couture collection in January, but a taste of it comes across in the spring ad campaign. Although the duo styled clothes designed by Alessandra Facchinetti, their predecessor who was ousted the day of her second Valentino ready-to-wear show last October, the message they wanted to convey was one of strong and sharp glamour and sensuality.

So they bypassed last season’s blurry romanticism favored by Facchinetti and captured by Peter Lindberg, and tapped Stephanie Seymour, who was shot in Los Angeles by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott against a gray seamless background. The model strikes graphic poses that set off her toned body, skimpily clad in ruched silk shifts, at times embroidered. The photos, both vertical and horizontal, also zoom in on rose-decorated bags and black sunglasses with rhinestone detailing.

The campaign breaks in fashion magazines in January.

Elsewhere, for his first ad campaign for Bally, Brian Atwood also turned to an ex-top model — Christy Turlington. The pictures taken by Mario Sorrenti channel the glam life of a good-looking, sophisticated and slightly nonchalant couple. Turlington and male model Oriol Elcacho were shot poolside in Miami Beach with intense and saturated colors. The campaign debuts in February magazines.

— Alessandra Ilari   

CLEAR MOTIVES: Saturday, the London-based fashion and lifestyle group, has acquired a majority stake in MO Communications, the London- and Paris-based fashion p.r. agency whose clients include Giles, Giambattista Valli, Mulberry, Iceberg and Rock & Republic. On Jan. 1, MO will merge with Relative PR, already part of Saturday’s stable, to form Relative MO. Justine Fairgrieve, Relative’s founder and senior partner, and MO co-founders Mesh Chhibber and Olivier Bourgis will act as managing partners, each continuing to be responsible for their existing clients. Brands represented by Relative PR include Christopher Kane, Julien Macdonald, Preen and Orla Kiely. “We felt that to grow the business over the long term we needed a partner and that Relative and Saturday are the perfect [choice],” said Chhibber, adding that Relative MO hopes to open a New York office in the near future. Services to be proposed by Relative MO, which will be based in the Biscuit Building in Shoreditch, London, will include consultancy, sponsorship, celebrity placement and sales.

— Katya Foreman

MOUSSAIEFF MAKES A MOVE: The London-based diamond jeweler Moussaieff — owner of some of the world’s biggest colored rocks — is slowly raising its profile. Two years ago, the company opened its first store, on London’s New Bond Street, and this month it unveiled Tamara Ecclestone, the model and TV presenter daughter of British Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone and his Croatian-born, soon to be ex-wife Slavica, as its first brand ambassador. Ecclestone features in the upcoming campaign, which will break in the March issues of British Tatler, Vogue, Vanity Fair, the International Herald Tribune and the Financial Times. She’s wearing emerald-cut diamonds on her fingers, and the blue of one stone matches the iris of her eyes in the photo. For her part, Ecclestone is also raising her profile with a new PETA campaign and reported plans to make a British version of “The Simple Life” with her men’s wear designer sister, Petra Ecclestone. She currently presents Britain’s Channel 4 show “The Red Bull Air Race World Series.”

— Samantha Conti