Valentino

Valentino is a Roman haute couture house, founded in 1960, known for a single shade of red and for the studded Rockstud accessories that carried its name into more wardrobes than couture ever could. It is one of the few houses still showing couture in Paris, and that atelier is the engine behind everything else it sells.

The commercial reality is broader than the runway. Valentino has worked its way into our ranking of the most popular luxury brands online on the back of a turnaround that moved most of its sales into its own retail network. That shift from wholesale to direct is the least glamorous thing a luxury house can do and usually the most consequential. And by search volume, the most recognized Valentino product today is not a gown or a bag but a bottle of Born in Roma.

The fashion house is Valentino Garavani’s. It is a separate thing from Mario Valentino, an older Naples leather-goods label the couturier fought in court for years, from the silent-film actor Rudolph Valentino, and from the MotoGP rider Valentino Rossi. When people say Valentino and mean fashion, this is the house they mean.

Behind the brand

History of Valentino

Valentino Garavani trained in Paris under Jean Dessès and Guy Laroche, then returned to Italy and opened a house on Via Condotti in Rome in 1960. Giancarlo Giammetti joined almost immediately and ran the business for the next five decades.

The break came in 1962 in Florence, where a collection shown to the international press turned into orders from American department stores. Jacqueline Kennedy became a client and wore Valentino to marry Aristotle Onassis in 1968, the same year the couturier showed an all-white collection that remains a reference point for the house. Through the following decades the Valentino red gown became the house’s signature on the red carpet, a specific scarlet the couturier said he fixed on after seeing a woman in a red dress at the opera in Barcelona as a student.

Garavani retired in 2008. Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli took the studio together, Piccioli continued alone from 2016 and rebuilt the house around color and volume, and Alessandro Michele arrived in 2024. The company is controlled by Mayhoola, the Qatari investment vehicle that bought it in 2012, with Kering taking a minority stake in 2023.

The Valentino collection

The Rockstud, launched in 2010, is the detail that built the accessories business. Pyramid studs on a pump, a crossbody or a tote turned a couture house into a brand people could buy into at accessory prices, and the Roman Stud and the VLogo lines followed the same logic. We cover the range in our guide to the best Valentino bags.

The Rockstud is most prominent in footwear. The Rockstud pump remains the piece the house is best known for at retail, and the flats, sandals and sneakers carry the studs across the rest of the shoe wall. Belts, sunglasses and fine jewelry fill out the accessories offer.

At the top is the couture, shown in Paris, and the gowns it puts on the red carpet.

Craftsmanship and materials

The atelier is the asset. Valentino’s couture is built on hand techniques that run to hundreds of hours per garment, and those skills feed straight into the ready-to-wear, especially the pleating, the ruffling and the way the house handles volume in silk. This is the part of Valentino that no license can reproduce, and it is the reason the brand still reads as couture rather than as a logo.

Leather goods and footwear are made in Italy. The studs are set individually, and on the shoes the placement follows the curve of the last rather than a straight line, which is the sort of detail the copies never get right.

Valentino fragrance and Born in Roma

Fragrance is, by search volume, the largest surface of the Valentino name, and Born in Roma is the reason. Launched in 2019 in men’s Uomo and women’s Donna versions, the line built a modern fragrance identity around the house’s Roman roots, and its flankers, from the Intense editions to the color-coded Coral Fantasy and Yellow Dream, have kept it near the top of the fragrance charts since.

The scents are not made by the fashion house directly. L’Oréal holds the worldwide license for Valentino Beauty and took it over in 2019, the same move that produced Born in Roma. That is why the fragrance reaches a far wider audience than a Rockstud pump ever will.

Where to buy Valentino

Valentino sells through its own boutiques and site and a curated wholesale network. The house has been pulling back from wholesale as it grows direct retail, so the official channels carry the fullest range. Rockstud accessories are the most widely available pieces, and the Born in Roma fragrances are stocked almost everywhere beauty is sold.

Valentino price

Valentino prices at the upper end of the Italian houses without matching the French leather goods maisons. Rockstud small leather goods and shoes start in the high hundreds, bags run into the low thousands, and couture is priced on request. The Born in Roma fragrances are the most affordable way into the name by a wide margin. The Rockstud pump is the piece with the longest life in a wardrobe, and it is worth buying in a neutral rather than the color of the season.