Valentino vs Mario Valentino: Two Companies, One Name
Two separate Italian companies sell handbags under the word Valentino, they are not connected, and the confusion has lasted long enough to generate its own case law. The first is the Roman couture house founded in 1960; the other is a Naples leather goods and footwear house founded in 1952. Each of them is legitimate, both have documented rights to the name in their own way, and the boundary between them was drawn by a private contract in 1979 rather than by a judge. This piece explains who each company is, what the agreement requires of each side, what the recent litigation covered and how it ended, and how a shopper can tell within seconds which company made a given bag. This is a trademark story, not an accusation against either side, and none of it should be read as a finding of wrongdoing. Read it once and no listing will fool you again.
Two houses, two cities, two businesses
Valentino S.p.A. is the Roman house founded in 1960 by Valentino Garavani and Giancarlo Giammetti, with its first atelier on Via Condotti. Ownership no longer has anything to do with the founder: the founder sold the business in 1998, control passed to Mayhoola for Investments in 2012 for around 700 million euros, and in July 2023 Kering acquired thirty per cent, with the stated intention of buying the company outright by 2028. Valentino Garavani retired from design work in 2007, presented his last couture collection in January 2008 and died on 19 January 2026 at the age of 93, so nothing in the current bag collection was designed by him. Mario Valentino S.p.A. is a different company, founded in Naples in 1952 by a man of that name and still headquartered valentino small shoulder bag there, and it is a leather goods and footwear house rather than a couture maison. It sells as Valentino by Mario Valentino, and its claims to have invented the stiletto heel and the women’s moccasin are self-description rather than verified history.
The 1979 agreement that divided the name
A coexistence agreement signed in 1979 established which marks each side could apply to which goods, and it is still the document everything else refers back to. It permits Mario Valentino to use Mario Valentino, M. Valentino, Valentino, MV or V on the exterior, provided the full name appears inside the item and on the packaging. The agreement also bars that company from combining V and Valentino on leather goods. Running in the other direction, Valentino S.p.A. is contractually required to use GARAVANI in addition to VALENTINO on its leather goods and in the advertising for them. There is also a separate United States position: Mario Valentino’s stated position is that it has held the American trademark Valentino for handbags and leather goods since 26 April 1971, and that senior-rights claim is corroborated in legal reporting.
Why GARAVANI has to appear
The surname on the interior tag of a bag from the Roman house is a contractual obligation rather than a styling choice. Given how the 1979 agreement allocated the marks, and given the senior US rights position on handbags, Valentino S.p.A. does not sell its leather goods under the single word Valentino. It is the addition of GARAVANI that keeps the mark distinct, and that is why VALENTINO GARAVANI shows up in capitals on the tag and in bag advertising. Inside the Roman house that wording doubles as an internal naming convention: Valentino Garavani is used for accessories while Valentino and Maison Valentino cover ready-to-wear. That is one company applying one set of standards, not a lower tier and a higher one. The practical upshot is the most useful fact in the entire subject: the couture house’s bags say GARAVANI, while a bag marked only Valentino on the outside with Mario Valentino inside is a genuine Mario Valentino, a separate company at a different price point.
The lawsuit filed in 2019, and its ending
In July 2019 Valentino S.p.A. brought suit against Mario Valentino in the US District Court for the Central District of California, docketed 2:19-cv-6306. In April 2021 Mario Valentino’s counterclaims were dismissed. The case itself settled and was dismissed without prejudice on 14 June 2024, on terms that were never disclosed. Dismissal without prejudice matters, because it leaves either side free to bring the matter back. Reporting also indicates that more than ten proceedings, including arbitrations, remained live in Italy, meaning the 2024 dismissal wrapped up a single American case rather than the entire disagreement. The claims pleaded in that action were:
- Claims of false advertising and unfair competition.
- Breach of the terms of the 1979 coexistence agreement.
- Handbags said to be lookalikes of the couture house’s designs.
- Alleged unauthorised use of the V mark on leather goods.
Reporting places the escalation of the dispute from 2017 onward, when handbag advertising began foregrounding the word VALENTINO on its own. Because the case settled, none of it was tested to judgment, and no finding of wrongdoing was entered against either side.
A second case, brought in 2022
Another action ran in the opposite direction, with a third party caught up in it. In October 2022 Mario Valentino S.p.A. brought a claim against Fashionphile Group LLC in the Southern District of New York, docketed 1:22-cv-08984. According to the complaint, approximately four hundred handbags had been listed on the resale platform as VALENTINO when they were in fact goods of Valentino S.p.A. The outcome of that case is unverified here and should not be described as resolved in either direction. The naming problem does not stop at the two companies: it reaches resale platforms, marketplace listings and anyone who describes a bag with a single word. For a buyer, the lesson is simple: a listing title is the least reliable part of any resale page.
Which shelves each brand actually reaches
The two companies reach shoppers through different channels, which resolves much of the confusion. The Roman house sells directly through its own webstore and boutiques and through a defined set of authorised retailers including Neiman Marcus, Bergdorf Goodman, Saks Fifth Avenue, Nordstrom, Mytheresa, Net-a-Porter, Farfetch, Selfridges, Harrods and Tessabit. Its legitimate off-price channel is THE OUTNET, the off-price arm of Net-a-Porter, though the depth of discount there is not something to state with confidence. It is the Naples company’s bags that appear on the shelves of American off-price chains, something verifiable from those retailers’ own brand filter pages. Which is why a Valentino bag sale at an off-price chain is very rarely what someone searching for the couture house has in mind. Nothing improper is involved on either side: both are simply companies selling their own goods through their own distribution. In 2026 the couture house’s leather goods were observed at market prices running from about $650 for a VLogo Signature clutch in grainy calfskin to $7,900 for an embroidered Panthea, all made in Italy, and Rebag’s data puts the house’s average resale retention near 41 per cent.
| Comparison point | Valentino S.p.A. | Mario Valentino S.p.A. |
|---|---|---|
| Origin | Rome, 1960 | Naples, in 1952 |
| Name carried on bags | Valentino Garavani | Valentino by Mario Valentino |
| Interior tag marking | VALENTINO, GARAVANI, MADE IN ITALY | Mario Valentino inside the item and on the packaging |
| Typical channels | Own boutiques, Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus, Mytheresa, Farfetch | Off-price retail: Nordstrom Rack, Saks OFF 5TH, TJ Maxx |
Telling them apart in thirty seconds
Look inside the bag rather than on the exterior. The interior tag of a couture-house bag carries VALENTINO and GARAVANI in capitals along with MADE IN ITALY, stitched down on all four sides, with consistent font weight and evenly pressed stamping. There is usually a serial number on a tag inside an interior pocket, though it is not universal, older pieces may have none, and an absent number by itself proves nothing. These bags have no date-code system, so any guide that promises to decode a manufacturing date from the digits is describing something that does not exist. Exterior reading only Valentino, interior reading Mario Valentino: that is a genuine Naples-made bag from the other company. The trap works in both directions: a real Mario Valentino bag will fail a Garavani checklist while being completely authentic, so work out which company made the bag before asking whether it is real.
What this means when you shop
Neither one is a counterfeit here, and framing this as fake against real misses what is happening. Want the Roman house? Search Valentino Garavani rather than Valentino on its own, and check the tag before you look at the price. Should the Naples company’s leather goods suit you, buy them knowingly and enjoy the lower price, which reflects a different business rather than a watered-down version of the same one. The damage happens in resale listings and third-party marketplaces that use a single word for both, which is exactly the ground the 2022 case covered. Any pre-owned Valentino bag described only as Valentino calls for clear photographs of the interior tag before money changes hands. Request the photographs and a decades-old tangle shrinks to a two-second check.