The Valentinos, the Most Prolific Fashion Family in Japan
June 4th, 2010Japanese TV loves (and I mean LOVES) to report on all the knock-off products and copyright violations rampant in China. Part of it is for the moral indignation factor (moral indignation is good for news ratings, and Japanese news shows LOVE moral indignation stories), and part of it is for the inherent humor when the copies are just plain bad (like the Chinese knock-off of Disneyland, which, I have to confess, even I found pretty damn funny).
However, while China copies everything from Apple to Ziploc, Japan is more specialized: Japan copies Valentino.
Don’t ask me why they picked this one brand, but the apparel manufacturers of Japan all seem to have gathered in some dark, smoky room and decided, “from now on, let’s focus our efforts on Valentino”. Perhaps they just really dislike Valentino, and wanted to destroy its image. Which worked: I had no idea Valentino was an actual non-Japanese non-budget brand, nor did my wife. I just assumed Valentino was the go-to name when you decided to make some cheap clothing, like “Valu” is the go-to prefix for cheap stuff in the US.
So, for your edification, a gallery of Valentino knock-offs. Please note that it only took me 15 minutes to find all these pictures. That’s how much fake Valentino there is in Japan.
Also, sorry, due to the small image size, some of the brand names are too small to read, so I’ve labeled them all.
Arvore Valentino
Calro Valentino
Franco Valentino
Gianni Valentino
Hugo Valentino
Izax Valentino
Luciano Valentino
Mario Valentino
Nicola Valentino
Raimondo Valentino
Romeo Valentino
Rudolph Valentino
Stefano Valentino
Valentino Adriano
Valentino Atelier
Valentino Christy
Valentino Milan
Valentino Rolenta
Valentino Vasari
The two things I am most fond of: the brands which are pretending to be Italian but put the surname before the first name, Japanese style (Valentino Adriano, etc.), and the whole subgenre based on 1920’s film star Rudolph Valentino. In addition to the Rudolph Valentino shirt above, I have seen, in stores, “Rudy Valentino”, “R Valentino”, and “Valentino Rudy” products (all unrelated to eachother).
