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The Row Margaux, Soft vs Original: The Spec Sheets Compared

Ask five people to explain the difference between the Margaux and the Soft Margaux and you will collect five confident, contradictory answers. The confusion is entirely understandable: the two bags share a name, a silhouette and a set of signature buckles, and 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, ranged 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. If a figure is not reliably documented, that is stated here instead of guessed at, because 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 comes next.

One Name, Two Bags, and a Complicated Year

An unlined-looking tote that takes its structure from leather thickness and panel shaping rather than stiffeners, the original Margaux is the flagship the brand’s handbag reputation was built on. Related but specified separately, the Soft Margaux arrived with its own construction details and its own product pages. During 2025 the original was pulled from third-party retailers, and the brand’s own webstore now presents 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 this means the shoulder bags online Soft Margaux is the version on sale new, while the original has become 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 simplest 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. The open-top shape acquires a way to shut thanks to an interior toggle closure. Belted side gussets allow the profile to be drawn in or let out. A zip pocket and card slots turn a deep cavity into something organised. The table below sets these out alongside the observed 2026 figures for the versions sold new.

Materials and Linings

Both the Soft Margaux 10 and 12 are stated as 100 percent calfskin in a matte grained finish, and both are lined in cotton herringbone. That lining choice tells you a great deal about the brand’s priorities, because a cotton herringbone interior is a textile decision rather than a branding one, and it holds shape without adding the plastic feel of a coated logo jacquard. The Margaux Shoulder 12 goes a step further, lining the bag in 100 percent lambskin — softer, more easily marked and considerably more expensive to work with. The wider family covers 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. The brand’s own product pages state Made in Italy for the Soft Margaux 10 and 12 and for the Margaux Shoulder 12. Suede and canvas versions read differently in the hand and, importantly, behave differently on resale.

Buckles, Fittings and Handles

On the Soft Margaux the hardware is palladium-plated, matte rather than polished in finish, consistent with the rest of the collection. The signature element on any Margaux is its pair of adjustable side buckles, and on genuine examples the buckles are engraved, as are the base feet where feet are fitted. Function rather than decoration is the point of the buckles, as they are what enables the belted gussets to change the bag’s width. The Soft Margaux 10 and 12 both run a 5-inch handle drop, which is 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. The Margaux Shoulder 12 replaces that arrangement entirely with elongated tubular handles and narrowed gusseted side panels, so it 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. The Soft Margaux 12 runs 12 x 9 x 7.5 inches, same depth with two inches more width and two more of height, and that is the size most buyers settle on for daily use. At 14.75 x 9 x 5 inches, the Margaux Shoulder 12 is the widest and shallowest of the three in spite of the 12 in its name, because that number refers to the bag’s stated size and not its maximum external span. A Soft Margaux 15 is in circulation, and a Margaux 17 in a leather-and-canvas execution has been carried by Selfridges. Neither of them has a verifiable retail price, so any figure quoted for them should be treated as an asking price rather than a documented one.

Prices Now, and What Resale Is Doing

In observed 2026 market pricing the Soft Margaux 10 sits at $3,650 and the Soft Margaux 12 at $4,350, with the Margaux Shoulder 12 at $4,900. The family therefore sits in the collection’s top band, alongside 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. One major resale authenticator sets new Margaux bags in the $5,000 to $9,000 range, and that is a useful sanity check, because anything advertised in the hundreds is almost certainly counterfeit. This is not investment advice, and it is worth remembering that canvas, nylon and seasonal-colour versions discount in place of appreciating.

Which Version to Choose

Want the bag you can really purchase new, with a warranty of availability and the fuller specification? The Soft Margaux is the straightforward answer. Opt for the 10 if you carry little and want the shape at its most sculptural, and the 12 if you want a working bag, because the second card slot and the zip pocket only appear at that size. The Margaux Shoulder 12 is the pick if your carry is under the arm rather than in the hand, because tubular handles and narrowed gussets are built for exactly that. Pursue the original on resale only if you specifically want the archive version and you are comfortable buying without metal feet, a toggle closure or interior organisation. Whatever the choice, the brand runs no public authenticity coding system at all, 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. Answer hand-carry or shoulder first of all, as it divides Soft from Shoulder immediately
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. Consider an original on the secondary market only at that point