Is there a way to make an itemized labeled list not go through the margins?

Question

The following has the item name out of the margins:

\documentclass{article}

\begin{document}

\begin{itemize}

\item[very very very very very long item name] and here are its details
\end{itemize}

\end{document}

I would like it not to go through the margins, but instead start at a place much more to the right.

Answer 1

Another option (apart from using description), is enumitem and its multiline option, allowing the label to wrap around. A specific labelwidth has to be set after multiline.

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{enumitem}
\begin{document}

\begin{itemize}[style=multiline,labelwidth=50pt]

\item[very very very very very long item name] and here are its details
\end{itemize}

\end{document}

Answer 2

If you have long item heads only every now and then, it may be tedious to have to type \item[\textbullet] systematically. You can use the wide option of enumitem, which makes left aligned labels instead of the default right-aligned:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[showframe]{geometry}
\usepackage{enumitem}
\usepackage{lipsum}

\begin{document}

\begin{itemize}[wide, leftmargin=*]

\item[\itshape very very very very very long item name] and here are its details:
\lipsum[4]

\item \lipsum[11]
\end{itemize}

\end{document}