Valentino's bag unit subcontracted to illegal workshops — a Milan court took it over

Valentino Bags Lab, based in Rosate outside Milan, makes bags and travel goods for the Valentino Group, majority-owned by Qatar's Mayhoola fund since 2012. It produced roughly 4,000 bags a month, priced to the workshops at €35–75 each, by subcontracting production down a chain of small Chinese-run manufacturers in the area.

Carabinieri from Milan's labour inspection unit found seven of those workshops operating illegally and unregistered. Of 76 workers identified, nine were working entirely off the books and three had no documentation at all. Inspectors documented wages below legal minimums, non-compliant hours, unsafe conditions, safety devices removed from machinery, improperly stored chemicals, and workers housed in dormitories built into the workshops themselves.

On May 15, 2025, the Milan Tribunal's Prevention Measures Section — the same court section used against organised-crime infiltration of supply chains — placed the company under judicial administration, finding it had failed to prevent labour exploitation it should have detected in its own contractor network. Carabinieri separately issued €286,000 in fines and €35,000 in administrative penalties.

Valentino Bags Lab was the fourth Milan-area fashion supplier hit with the same measure since 2023, after Alviero Martini, Armani Operations and Dior Manufactures — all of which had their receiverships lifted once they put corrective controls in place.