Valentino vs Mario Valentino: Two Different Companies Sharing a Single Name
Two separate Italian companies sell handbags under the word Valentino, the two are unrelated, and the confusion is old enough to have generated its own case law. One of them is the Roman couture house founded in 1960; the second is a leather goods and footwear company founded in Naples in 1952. Each of them is 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 concluded, and how a shopper can tell within seconds which company made a given bag. It is a trademark story rather than an accusation against either side, and nothing below should be taken as a finding of wrongdoing. Take it in once and you will not 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: the founder sold https://valetino.net/ the business in 1998, Mayhoola for Investments took control 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 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 an entirely separate company, set up in Naples in 1952 by a man of that name and headquartered there ever since, and it is 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 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 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. 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.
Why one company is obliged to 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 present its leather goods under the single word Valentino. 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 the same wording doubles as a 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: a bag from the couture house says 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 ended
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. The counterclaims brought by Mario Valentino were dismissed in April 2021. The case itself settled and was dismissed without prejudice on 14 June 2024, on terms that were never disclosed. The words without prejudice matter here, because either side is still free to bring the matter back. Reporting also suggests that more than ten proceedings, arbitrations among them, 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.
- A claimed breach of the 1979 coexistence agreement.
- Handbags claimed to imitate 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 started putting the word VALENTINO forward on its own. Because the case settled, none of it was tested to judgment, and there was no finding of wrongdoing against either company.
A second case, filed in 2022
A separate action ran in the opposite direction and involved a third party. 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. 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. The outcome of that case is unverified here and should not be described as resolved in either direction. The confusion over the name is not limited to the two companies: it extends to resale platforms, marketplace listings and everyone who describes a bag with one word. The lesson for a buyer is that the title of a listing is the least reliable part of any resale page.
Where each brand actually appears
The two companies reach shoppers through different channels, and that alone clears up much of the confusion. Sales for the Roman house run through its own webstore and boutiques and through a defined list 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, 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. Neither situation involves anything improper: these are two companies selling their own goods through their own distribution. Observed 2026 market prices for the couture house’s leather goods ran 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.
| Comparison point | Valentino S.p.A. | Mario Valentino S.p.A. |
|---|---|---|
| Origin | Rome, in 1960 | 1952, Naples |
| Bag branding | Valentino Garavani | Valentino by Mario Valentino |
| Marking inside | VALENTINO, GARAVANI, MADE IN ITALY | Mario Valentino inside the item and on the packaging |
| Where it is usually sold | Its own boutiques, plus Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus, Mytheresa and Farfetch | Off-price retail: Nordstrom Rack, Saks OFF 5TH, TJ Maxx |
Separating the two in thirty seconds
Look inside the bag first, not outside. A couture-house bag has VALENTINO and GARAVANI in capitals on the interior tag, together 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, though it is not universal, older pieces may have none, and an absent number by itself 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. 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 company is the counterfeit here, and posing it as fake against real misses the point entirely. If the Roman house is what you want, search for Valentino Garavani instead of Valentino alone, 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. Where it goes wrong is in resale listings and third-party marketplaces that describe both with one word, which is precisely the territory the 2022 case covered. A pre-owned Valentino bag listed only as Valentino needs clear photographs of the interior tag before any money changes hands. Ask for those photographs, and a decades-old tangle turns into a two-second check.