Valentino vs Mario Valentino: Two Companies, One Name
Two separate Italian companies sell handbags under the word Valentino, there is no relationship between them, and the resulting confusion is old enough to have produced its own case law. The first is the Roman couture house founded in 1960; the second is a leather goods and footwear firm founded in Naples in 1952. Both are legitimate, each has documented rights to the name in its own way, and the boundary between them was drawn by a private contract in 1979 rather than by a judge. This article sets out who each company is, what that agreement requires, which ground the recent litigation covered and how it finished, and how a shopper can work out in seconds which company made a given bag. What follows is a trademark story rather than an accusation aimed at either side, and none of it should be read as a finding of wrongdoing. Read it once and you will never misread a listing 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: the founder sold the business in 1998, control passed to Mayhoola for Investments in 2012 for around 700 million euros, and Kering took thirty per cent in July 2023, planning to buy the company outright by 2028. Valentino Garavani himself retired from design 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 based there, and it operates as a leather goods and footwear house rather than 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 contract that carved up the name
A coexistence agreement signed in 1979 set out which marks each side could put on which valentino flap bag goods, and it is still the document everything else refers back to. Under its terms, 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. That same agreement prevents the company from using V and Valentino together on leather goods. Running the other way, Valentino S.p.A. is contractually obliged to use GARAVANI in addition to VALENTINO on its leather goods and in the advertising for them. A separate United States position also applies: 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.
The reason one company must add GARAVANI
The surname on the interior tag of a bag from the Roman house is a contractual obligation rather than a styling choice. On account of the way the 1979 agreement divided the marks, and because of 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. Inside the Roman house that wording doubles as an internal naming convention: Valentino Garavani covers accessories, while Valentino and Maison Valentino are used for ready-to-wear. That is one company applying one set of standards, not a lower tier and a higher one. The practical consequence is the most useful fact in the whole 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.
What the 2019 lawsuit covered, and how it finished
In July 2019 Valentino S.p.A. sued Mario Valentino in the US District Court for the Central District of California, docketed 2:19-cv-6306. Mario Valentino’s counterclaims were dismissed in April 2021. The case itself was settled and dismissed without prejudice on 14 June 2024, with terms that were never disclosed. The words without prejudice matter here, because either side is still free to bring the matter back. According to reporting, more than ten proceedings, including arbitrations, were still live in Italy, so the 2024 dismissal closed one American case rather than the whole dispute. The action pleaded the following claims:
- Unfair competition and false advertising.
- A claimed 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.
The dispute is reported to have escalated 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 no finding of wrongdoing was made against either company.
A second case, brought in 2022
Another action ran in the opposite direction, with a third party drawn in. In October 2022 Mario Valentino S.p.A. filed suit against Fashionphile Group LLC in the Southern District of New York, docketed 1:22-cv-08984. The complaint alleged that around 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 naming problem is not confined to the two companies: it extends to resale platforms, marketplace listings and everyone who describes a bag with one word. For a buyer, the lesson is simple: a listing title 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, although the depth of the reductions there cannot be stated with confidence. The bags on the shelves of American off-price chains come from the Naples company, 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. Neither case involves any impropriety: 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. |
|---|---|---|
| Founded in | Rome, in 1960 | Naples, 1952 |
| Name carried on bags | Valentino Garavani | Valentino by Mario Valentino |
| Interior marking | VALENTINO, GARAVANI, MADE IN ITALY | Mario Valentino inside and on packaging |
| Where it is usually sold | Own boutiques; Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus, Mytheresa, Farfetch | Off-price retail: Nordstrom Rack, Saks OFF 5TH, TJ Maxx |
How to tell them apart 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, sewn on all four sides, the font weight consistent and the stamping evenly pressed. A serial number usually appears on a tag inside an interior pocket, but it is not universal, older pieces may carry none, and its absence alone proves nothing. These bags carry no date-code system at all, so any guide promising to decode a manufacturing date from the digits is describing something that does not exist. If the outside reads only Valentino while the inside says Mario Valentino, you have a genuine Naples-made bag from the other company. The trap runs both ways: an authentic Mario Valentino bag fails a Garavani checklist despite being entirely genuine, so settle which company made the bag before you ask whether it is genuine.
What it all means when you buy
Neither of these companies is the counterfeit, and treating this as fake versus real misses what is actually going on. 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 harm occurs in resale listings and third-party marketplaces that use one word to describe both, which is precisely the territory the 2022 case covered. A pre-owned Valentino bag described only as Valentino needs clear photographs of the interior tag before any money changes hands. Ask for those photographs and a decades-old tangle collapses into a two-second check.
