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Valentino vs Mario Valentino: One Name, Two Companies
Two Italian companies sell handbags under the word Valentino, they are not connected, and the resulting confusion is old enough to have produced its own case law. One of them is the Roman couture house founded in 1960; the other is a Naples leather goods and footwear house founded in 1952. Both are entirely legitimate, both have documented rights to the name in their own way, and it was a private contract in 1979, rather than a judge, that drew the line between them. This article sets out who each company is, what that contract requires, what the recent litigation covered and how it concluded, 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 names, two cities, two businesses
Founded in 1960 by Valentino Garavani and Giancarlo Giammetti, with a first atelier on Via Condotti, Valentino S.p.A. is the Roman house. Ownership has nothing to do with the founder: he 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, showed his final couture collection in January 2008 and died on 19 January 2026 at the age of 93, so none of the current bag collection is his design. Mario Valentino S.p.A. is a different business altogether, founded in Naples in 1952 by a man of that name, and still based there, and it is a leather goods and footwear house, not a couture maison. It sells as Valentino by Mario Valentino, though its claims to have invented the stiletto heel and the women’s moccasin are self-description rather than verified history.
The 1979 agreement that valentino black shoulder bag divided the name
A coexistence agreement signed in 1979 set out which marks each side could put on which goods, and it remains the reference point for everything that followed. Under it, Mario Valentino may use Mario Valentino, M. Valentino, Valentino, MV or V on the exterior, so long as the full name appears inside the item and on the packaging. The same agreement bars that company from using V and Valentino together 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 a distinct United States angle as well: Mario Valentino states it has held the American trademark Valentino for handbags and leather goods since 26 April 1971, and legal reporting corroborates that senior-rights point.
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. Because of how the 1979 agreement allocated the marks, and given the senior US rights position on handbags, Valentino S.p.A. never presents its leather goods under the word Valentino alone. Adding GARAVANI is what keeps the mark distinct, which is why the tag and the advertising for bags carry VALENTINO GARAVANI in capitals. Within the Roman house the same wording also works as a naming convention: Valentino Garavani covers accessories, while Valentino and Maison Valentino are used for ready-to-wear. This is one company with one set of standards, not a cheaper line and a dearer one. In practical terms, this yields the single most useful fact in the whole subject: a bag from the couture house carries GARAVANI, and a bag that reads only Valentino outside and Mario Valentino inside is a genuine Mario Valentino, a different company selling at a different price point.
What the 2019 lawsuit covered, and how it finished
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, since it leaves either side free to raise the matter again. 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:
- Alleged false advertising and unfair competition.
- Alleged breach of the 1979 coexistence agreement.
- An allegation that certain handbags were lookalikes of the couture house’s designs.
- Use of the V mark on leather goods, said to be unauthorised.
Reporting places the escalation of the dispute from 2017 onward, when handbag advertising started putting the word VALENTINO forward on its own. Since the case settled, nothing in it was tested to judgment, and neither company was the subject of any finding of wrongdoing.
The second case, filed in 2022
Another action ran in the opposite direction, with a third party caught up in it. Mario Valentino S.p.A. filed suit against Fashionphile Group LLC in the Southern District of New York in October 2022, under docket 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. That case’s outcome is not verified here, and it should not be reported as settled in either direction. The confusion over the name is not limited to the two companies: it reaches resale platforms, marketplace listings and anyone who describes a bag with a single word. The lesson for a buyer is that the title of a listing is the least reliable part of any resale page.
Where each of them is actually sold
Different channels carry the two companies, which clears up a good deal 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. The legitimate off-price outlet is THE OUTNET, the off-price arm of Net-a-Porter, though the depth of discount there is not something to state with confidence. The Naples company’s bags are the ones that appear on the shelves of American off-price chains, as those retailers’ own brand filter pages confirm. That is why a Valentino bag sale at an off-price chain is very rarely what a shopper searching for the couture house has in mind. Nothing improper is involved on either side: these are two separate companies selling their own goods through their own distribution. The couture house’s leather goods were observed in 2026 at market prices 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.
| Point compared | Valentino S.p.A. | Mario Valentino S.p.A. |
|---|---|---|
| Origin | Rome, in 1960 | Naples, in 1952 |
| Bag branding | Valentino Garavani | Valentino by Mario Valentino |
| What the inside says | VALENTINO, GARAVANI, MADE IN ITALY | Mario Valentino inside and on the packaging |
| Usual channels | Own boutiques, Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus, Mytheresa, Farfetch | Off-price retail: Nordstrom Rack, Saks OFF 5TH, TJ Maxx |
Separating the two in thirty seconds
Look inside the bag first, not outside. 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 carry no date-code system at all, meaning any guide offering 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. That trap cuts both ways: an authentic Mario Valentino bag fails a Garavani checklist despite being entirely genuine, so determine which company made the bag before you ask whether it is genuine.
How to use this when you shop
Neither company is the counterfeit here, and framing this as fake against real misses what is happening. If you want the Roman house, search for Valentino Garavani rather than Valentino alone, and read the tag before the price. If the Naples company’s leather goods suit you, buy them with your eyes open and enjoy the lower price, a price that reflects a different business, not a compromised version of the same one. The harm occurs in resale listings and third-party marketplaces that use one word to describe both, precisely the territory covered by the 2022 case. Any pre-owned Valentino bag described only as Valentino calls for clear photographs of the interior tag before money changes hands. Ask for those photographs and a decades-old tangle collapses into a two-second check.