Valentino vs Mario Valentino: One Name, Two Companies
Two Italian companies sell handbags under the word Valentino, they are not connected, and the confusion is old enough to have generated 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. Both are entirely legitimate, each has documented rights to the name in its own way, and the line between them was drawn by a private contract in 1979, not by a judge. This article sets out who each company is, what that contract requires, what the recent litigation covered and how it ended, 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
Valentino S.p.A. is the Roman house founded in 1960 by Valentino Garavani and Giancarlo Giammetti, with its first atelier on Via Condotti. The ownership story has nothing to do with the founder: he sold the business in 1998, Mayhoola for Investments took control in 2012 for roughly 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 a final couture collection in January 2008 and died on 19 January 2026, aged 93, so none of the current bag collection is his design. Mario Valentino S.p.A. is a different business altogether, set up in Naples in 1952 by a man of that name and headquartered luxury tote bag there to this day, and it operates as a leather goods and footwear house rather than a couture maison. The company 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.
How the 1979 agreement split the name
A coexistence agreement signed in 1979 established which marks each side could apply to which goods, and it remains the document everything else refers back to. 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 its packaging. The same agreement bars that company from using V and Valentino together on leather goods. In the opposite direction, the contract requires Valentino S.p.A. 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 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 one company must write 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, together with the senior US rights position on handbags, Valentino S.p.A. does not sell its leather goods under the single word Valentino. Adding GARAVANI is what keeps the mark distinguishable, and that is why VALENTINO GARAVANI shows up in capitals on the tag and in bag advertising. Inside the Roman house the same wording doubles 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: the couture house’s bags say 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.
The 2019 lawsuit, and how it concluded
Valentino S.p.A. sued Mario Valentino in July 2019 in the US District Court for the Central District of California, under docket 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, so the 2024 dismissal ended one American case rather than the whole disagreement. The claims set out 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.
- Alleged unauthorised use of the V mark on leather goods.
The dispute is reported to have escalated 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.
The second case, filed in 2022
A separate action ran in the opposite direction and involved a third party. 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. 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 reaches resale platforms, marketplace listings and anyone who describes a bag with a single word. For a buyer, the lesson is that a listing title is the least reliable part of any resale page.
Where each brand actually appears
The two companies reach shoppers through different channels, which resolves much of the confusion. The Roman house sells through its own webstore and boutiques, plus 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 Naples company’s bags are the ones that appear on the shelves of American off-price chains, which is verifiable from those retailers’ own brand filter pages. 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 situation involves anything improper: these are two 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, while Rebag’s data places the house’s average resale retention near 41 per cent.
| Point compared | Valentino S.p.A. | Mario Valentino S.p.A. |
|---|---|---|
| Founding | Rome, 1960 | Naples, in 1952 |
| Name used on bags | Valentino Garavani | Valentino by Mario Valentino |
| What the inside says | VALENTINO, GARAVANI, MADE IN ITALY | Mario Valentino inside and on the packaging |
| Typical retail channels | Own boutiques, Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus, Mytheresa, Farfetch | Off-price chains: Nordstrom Rack, Saks OFF 5TH, TJ Maxx |
How to tell them apart in thirty seconds
Begin 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, sewn down on all four sides, with consistent font weight and evenly pressed stamping. A serial number usually appears on a tag inside an interior pocket, but not always: older pieces may carry none, and its absence on its own proves nothing. Date codes are not part of how these bags are marked, 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: a real Mario Valentino bag will fail a Garavani checklist while being completely authentic, so settle which company made the bag before you ask whether it is genuine.
How to use this 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 read the tag before you read the price. If 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. Where it goes wrong is in resale listings and third-party marketplaces that describe both with one word, 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. Ask for them, and a decades-old tangle reduces to a two-second check.