Why That Second Word on Your Valentino Bag Is Garavani

Turn a Valentino bag inside out and the tag shows two words where you might have expected one: VALENTINO and GARAVANI, in capitals, above MADE IN ITALY. Shoppers generally treat that second word as a flourish, as a founder’s signature added for prestige, or as evidence they have bought some particular sub-line. It is not any of those things. The reason GARAVANI is on the bag is a contract signed in 1979 that requires it, and the same requirement puts the word throughout the advertising for the house’s leather goods. Understanding the reason turns a piece of trivia into the most valuable check a buyer can make. This piece explains where the word comes from, what it guarantees, and what it does not.

The one-sentence answer

Another company holds overlapping rights to the word Valentino on handbags in the United States, and decades ago the Roman couture house agreed to add its founder’s surname so the two stayed distinguishable. Mario Valentino S.p.A. is that other company, founded in Naples in 1952, a leather goods and footwear business with no connection to the couture house founded in Rome in 1960. Mario Valentino states it has held the American trademark Valentino for handbags and leather goods since 26 April 1971, and that senior-rights position is corroborated in legal reporting. The marks were divided between the two businesses by a coexistence agreement in 1979, one term of which obliges Valentino S.p.A. to use GARAVANI alongside VALENTINO on leather goods and in the advertising for them. So the word on your bag is a legal obligation carried out in stamped capitals. All the rest is detail attached to that one fact.

The man the surname belongs to

Together with Giancarlo Giammetti, Valentino Garavani founded the house in Rome in 1960 and opened the first atelier on Via Condotti. He designed under his own name for close to five decades, retiring from design in 2007 and showing his final couture collection in January 2008. He had already sold the company in 1998, meaning that by the time he stepped back he no longer owned the business carrying his name. He died on 19 January 2026, aged valentino garavani bag 93. None of the bags in the current collection were designed by him, and nor was anything made in the past two decades. The surname on the tag records who started the house, and says nothing about who works there now.

The 1979 agreement and the case that put it to the test

The two companies settled their overlap privately rather than through a court, and the coexistence agreement they signed in 1979 is still the governing document. It runs in both directions, giving each business a defined set of permissions and a defined set of limits. Decades later the arrangement was tested in an American court, when Valentino S.p.A. filed suit against Mario Valentino in July 2019 in the Central District of California, docketed 2:19-cv-6306, alleging false advertising, unfair competition and breach of the coexistence agreement. The counterclaims from Mario Valentino were dismissed in April 2021, and settlement followed with a dismissal without prejudice on 14 June 2024, terms never disclosed. Ending without prejudice means either side may bring the matter back, and reporting indicates further proceedings, arbitrations among them, remained live in Italy. Neither company had wrongdoing established against it, and none is suggested here; this is a trademark boundary between two legitimate businesses.

What the Naples company can do

The agreement permits Mario Valentino to trade under several forms of the name. Permitted on the exterior of its products are Mario Valentino, M. Valentino, Valentino, MV or V. The attached condition is that the full name Mario Valentino must appear inside the item and on its packaging, keeping the maker identifiable to anyone who opens the bag. The company may not combine V and Valentino together on leather goods. Its products are genuine goods from a genuine Italian house, sold at a different price point and through channels other than the couture house uses. Claims the company makes about inventing the stiletto heel and the women’s moccasin are self-description rather than independently verified history, and are best treated that way.

What the Roman house must do

The obligation running the other way is narrower and far more visible. For leather goods and their advertising, Valentino S.p.A. uses the mark VALENTINO GARAVANI rather than VALENTINO alone. It is the reason the accessories line is named as it is, the reason the interior tag carries both words, and the reason the house’s own product pages for bags use the longer form consistently. Not every category is reached identically by the requirement, which is why ready-to-wear can be presented as Valentino or Maison Valentino. For a buyer the effect is simple: the longer name on a bag is the expected, compliant form, and its absence on something sold as couture-house merchandise deserves a second look. The rule is boring, contractual and enormously useful.

One house, two names

A common misreading has Valentino Garavani as a sub-brand, a diffusion line or a lower tier within the same company. That is wrong. Valentino Garavani is the naming convention used for accessories, while Valentino and Maison Valentino are used for ready-to-wear, and all of it comes from one company applying one set of standards. A Rockstud crossbody bag and a couture gown are equally the work of the same house, and only the wording on the label differs, for the contractual reason set out above. Creative direction moved from Pierpaolo Piccioli to Alessandro Michele, in charge of the house since 2024 according to the most recent confirmable reporting. Mayhoola for Investments holds seventy per cent and Kering thirty per cent, the latter acquired in July 2023 with a stated intention to take full ownership by 2028. In 2026 the accessories carrying the longer name were observed at market prices from about $650 for a VLogo Signature clutch up to $7,900 for an embroidered Panthea, all made in Italy, and average resale retention for the house sits near 41 per cent on Rebag’s data, with hero styles between 50 and 58 per cent.

What GARAVANI guarantees, and what it does not

What GARAVANI on a tag tells you is which company made the bag. By itself it does not prove the bag is authentic, because counterfeiters copy tags as readily as they copy studs. The checks that matter are physical: capitals in a consistent font weight, evenly pressed stamping without smudging, a tag sewn down on all four sides, engraved rather than printed hardware logos, square zip pulls with rounded edges and deep engraving, uniform pyramid studs at even spacing, and stitching of consistent density. On most bags a serial number sits on a tag inside an interior pocket, often black, cream or light brown, but not on all of them, older pieces frequently lack one, and a missing serial proves nothing by itself. There is no date-code system on these bags at all, and any guide claiming to decode a production date from the digits is inventing it. Reports describe authenticity cards listing the model specification, the serial and Made in Italy, with the serial matching the interior tag, but that comes from resale and authentication practice rather than an official brand statement, and pre-owned bags frequently arrive without one.

Reading a listing before you buy

Most mistakes happen in the description rather than in the bag. Where a resale listing is headed simply Valentino bag, it carries no information about which company made it; sellers abbreviate constantly, sometimes without realising there is anything to abbreviate. Before agreeing a price, ask for a clear photograph of the interior tag, and believe what the tag says rather than what the title says. If you are shopping new, buy from the house’s own boutiques and webstore, or from named authorised retailers such as Neiman Marcus, Bergdorf Goodman, Saks Fifth Avenue, Nordstrom, Mytheresa, Farfetch, Selfridges or Harrods, where the question never arises. If you are browsing a Valentino bag sale at an American off-price chain, expect Valentino by Mario Valentino, since that is what those chains’ own brand filters list. One word on a tag settles all of it, which is precisely why it is worth knowing how the word got there.