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Valentino Beauty is launching its first new fragrance franchise in over six years, the brand told The Business of Beauty exclusively.
Called Vendetta, the new collection includes a mens and womens scent fronted by new house ambassadors Alexander Skarsgård and Dakota Johnson, and arrives in Valentino boutiques and select airports on July 15 before a wider release on Aug. 24.
The launch capitalises on the success of the label’s fragrance business, anchored by its Born in Roma franchise, which launched in 2019 after L’Oréal took over the Valentino Beauty licence from Puig. As of June 2026, Valentino Beauty was the fourth-ranked fragrance brand in the world, according to president Claudia Marcocci, behind Dior, Chanel and L’Oréal stablemate YSL; Born in Roma is currently the number-one fragrance for men and women in the US.
“It’s incredible, considering we only have one fragrance franchise,” Marcocci said.
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Now it’s revamping its second. Valentino first launched Vendetta for men and women in 1991, as a pair of opulent nighttime scents inspired by Italian cinema; for its reintroduction, the brand cast Johnson and Skarsgård to continue the narrative thread, though the scents are brand-new. Vendetta Donna focuses on tuberose, nosed by IFF legend Dominique Ropion, while Uomo’s ginger-based scent was done by Marie Salamagne, DSM-Firmenich’s newest master perfumer.
Where Born in Roma is focused on expression, Vendetta is inspired by passion. “Why ginger and tuberose? Because, of course, these are aphrodisiacs,” Marcocci said. “We wanted to create this effect of surprise, because we are trying to fight against fragrant banalisation.”
V for Victory
Designer fragrances have been helped and hurt by the greater perfume boom, which has led to an explosion of launches on either side of the price spectrum — cheaper body and hair mists on one end, expensive niche formulations on the other. But sales of fragrances in the middle, where many entry-level designer scents sit, cratered in 2025, as consumers traded up and down. According to Circana, sales of mass and mid-range scents declined 5 percent and 3 percent in the year ended May 2026, while prestige sales were up 7 percent.
Valentino Beauty is well aware of these shifts. After its licence transferred from Puig to L’Oréal, the brand discontinued its delicate 2010s Valentina scents and introduced Born in Roma, distilling the brand’s Italian heritage into edgier, rockstud-inspired flacons. The house has since flanked the collection with Born in Roma hair and body mists ($60) and launched its own haute parfumerie collection, called Anatomy of Dreams, in 2024 ($395). Valentino Beauty’s sales recently exceeded $802 million, L’Oréal Luxe president Cyril Chapuy told BoF in June.
As fragrances increasingly are created for all genders, the brand decided to gender the new launches according to perfume tradition, but Valentino’s customer base often blurs these lines: 60 percent of Valentino Beauty’s male customer base use the feminine Born in Roma scent, she said.
Vendetta strikes an edgier chord compared to Born in Roma. The bottles are square, embossed with graphic capital Vs; a sexy, cinematic campaign, shot by Inez and Vinoodh, shows Johnson and Skarsgård seducing one another. (“The scent of unstoppable passion,” Skarsgård says in a voice-over.) Johnson, of course, was a muse for Valentino’s creative director Alessandro Michele during his Gucci tenure, when she fronted the scent Bloom.
While fragrance remains Valentino Beauty’s core sales driver, the brand’s cosmetics collection — which spans eyes, lips and complexion — is gaining in China, according to Marcocci, where it sells exclusive formulas like cushion compacts.
“Of course, the sky is the limit when it comes to Valentino, because there is so much to conquer,” she said.
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