The Row Margaux: How the Soft Margaux and the Original Part Ways, Spec by Spec

Ask five people what the difference is between the Margaux and the Soft Margaux and you will get five assured, contradictory answers. It is understandable confusion, given that the two share a name, a silhouette and a set of signature buckles, and that the shopping situation around them changed sharply in 2025. What follows is specification-led rather than impression-led — measurements, materials, closures, linings and observed prices, placed against each other line by line. All of it comes from what the brand states on its own product pages and from prices observed in the market in 2026 — observations, not an official price list. Where a figure is not reliably documented, this article says so rather than guessing, since the Margaux is the single most misquoted bag in the label’s catalogue. The short version is that the Soft is not a cheaper or lazier Margaux; it is a more equipped one. The long version is below.

Two Bags Sharing a Name Through a Complicated Year

The brand built its handbag reputation on the original Margaux, an unlined-looking tote whose structure comes from leather thickness and panel shaping in place of stiffeners. Related but specified separately, the Soft Margaux arrived with its own construction details and its own product pages. Over the course of 2025 the original was pulled from third-party retailers, and the brand’s own webstore now the row margaux bag shows the Soft Margaux and the Margaux Shoulder rather than the original. Its discontinuation has been widely reported, but it has never been officially confirmed by the brand, and that distinction is not pedantry when you are deciding what to pay on the secondary market. In practice, the Soft Margaux is the one you can buy new and the original is now a resale proposition. Anyone comparing the two is really comparing a current product with an archive one, and that changes how the specification differences should be weighted.

The Spec Sheet, Side by Side

The cleanest way to see the difference is to isolate the features the Soft version adds and check them one at a time. There are five of them, and together they change how the bag behaves in daily use rather than how it looks from across a street. Protective metal feet keep the base off the ground. An interior toggle closure finally gives the open-top shape a way to close. Belted side gussets let the profile be cinched or released. A deep cavity becomes something organised once a zip pocket and card slots are added. The table below sets these out alongside the observed 2026 figures for the versions sold new.

Specification	Soft Margaux 10 and 12	Original Margaux
Protective metal feet	Fitted as standard	Not part of the specification
Interior toggle closure	Fitted	Not part of the specification
Belted side gussets	Fitted	Not specified
Zip pocket	On the 12 only	Not in the specification
Card slots	One on the 10, two on the 12	Not part of the specification
Observed 2026 pricing	$3,650 and $4,350	Resale only

Exterior Materials and Linings

Stated as 100 percent calfskin in a matte grained finish, the Soft Margaux 10 and 12 are both lined in cotton herringbone. That choice of lining says a great deal about the brand’s priorities, since a cotton herringbone interior is a textile decision rather than a branding one, and it holds shape without the plastic feel of a coated logo jacquard. The Margaux Shoulder 12 takes it further with a 100 percent lambskin lining, which is softer, marks more readily and costs considerably more to work with. The wider family runs to grained calfskin, saddle calfskin, suede, canvas paired with leather, and nylon on the outside, so no one should assume a Margaux is a smooth-leather bag. On the brand’s own product pages, Made in Italy is given for the Soft Margaux 10 and 12 and for the Margaux Shoulder 12. The suede and canvas versions read differently in the hand and, crucially, perform differently on resale.

Hardware, Buckles and Handles

Hardware on the Soft Margaux is palladium-plated, and it is finished matte rather than polished, in keeping with the rest of the collection. The signature element on any Margaux is the pair of adjustable side buckles, and on genuine examples those buckles are engraved, as are the base feet where feet are fitted. The buckles are functional, not decorative, because they are what allows the belted gussets to change the width of the bag. Both the Soft Margaux 10 and 12 run a 5-inch handle drop, a hand-carry or crook-of-the-elbow measurement rather than a shoulder one, and both include a removable shoulder strap to cover the difference. Elongated tubular handles and narrowed gusseted side panels replace the arrangement entirely on the Margaux Shoulder 12, which is designed from the start to sit under the arm. For one The Row bag that carries hands-free without a strap, the answer is the Shoulder and not the Soft.

The Sizes and the Numbers Behind Them

Because the number in the name is simply the bag’s width in inches, the family is easier to navigate than most. The Soft Margaux 10 measures 10 x 7 x 7.5 inches, which is a genuinely compact bag with an unusual amount of depth for its footprint. At 12 x 9 x 7.5 inches, the Soft Margaux 12 keeps the depth and adds two inches of width and two of height, which is why most buyers settle on it for daily use. The Margaux Shoulder 12 measures 14.75 x 9 x 5 inches, so despite the 12 in its name it is the widest and shallowest of the three, since the number refers to the bag’s stated size rather than its maximum external span. A Soft Margaux 15 exists as well, and a leather-and-canvas Margaux 17 has been carried by Selfridges. No verifiable retail price exists for either, so read any figure quoted for them as an asking price and not a documented one.

What They Cost and How Resale Reacts

On observed 2026 market pricing, the Soft Margaux 10 sits at $3,650, the Soft Margaux 12 at $4,350 and the Margaux Shoulder 12 at $4,900. Those figures put the whole family in the collection’s top band, next to the India and Agnes top handles and the Marlo totes. The secondary market picture is an unusual one: the Rebag CLAIR 2025 report recorded the Margaux Tote at 107 percent value retention, inside a brand-level figure of 97 percent that lifted the label into the report’s unicorn tier for the first time. Softer secondary figures point in the same direction: the Margaux is reported to sell frequently at around 40 percent above retail, Fashionphile resale is reported up roughly 44 percent year on year, and The RealReal reports pre-owned Margaux sales averaging about 15 percent over original retail. New Margaux bags are placed in the $5,000 to $9,000 range by a major resale authenticator, which makes a useful sanity check: anything advertised in the hundreds is almost certainly counterfeit. None of it amounts to investment advice, and canvas, nylon and seasonal-colour versions are worth remembering as the ones that discount rather than appreciate.

Which Version Fits Your Carry

If you want the bag you can actually purchase new, with a warranty of availability and the fuller specification, the Soft Margaux is the straightforward answer. Choose the 10 if you carry little and want the shape at its most sculptural, and the 12 if you want a working bag, since the second card slot and the zip pocket only appear at that size. Opt for the Margaux Shoulder 12 when the arm rather than the hand is how you carry, as its tubular handles and narrowed gussets exist for that purpose. Go after the original on resale only when you specifically want the archive version and are prepared to buy without metal feet, a toggle closure or interior organisation. Whatever the choice, the brand runs no public authenticity coding system of any kind, so verification comes down to stitching, hand-painted edges, stamp placement and the weight and finish of the hardware. Buy black or neutral calfskin if resale matters to you, and buy whatever colour you like if it does not.

1. Start with hand-carry or shoulder, because that separates Soft from Shoulder straight away
2. Then size — the 10 for occasion carry, the 12 for daily use
3. Then material, remembering that canvas and seasonal colours discount on resale
4. Only after that should an original on the secondary market come into it