The Row Margaux: How the Soft Margaux and the Original Differ, Spec by Spec
Ask five people to spell out the difference between the Margaux and the Soft Margaux and you will get five confident, contradictory answers. The confusion is perfectly 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. Everything here comes from what the brand states on its product pages and from prices observed in the market in 2026, which are observations rather than 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. In short, the Soft is not a cheaper or lazier Margaux; it is the more equipped of the two. The full version is below.
One Name, Two Bags, and a Complicated Year
The original Margaux is the flagship the brand built its handbag reputation on, an unlined-looking tote whose structure rests on leather thickness and panel shaping rather than from stiffeners. The Soft Margaux appeared as a related yet separately specified bag, with construction details and product pages of its own. the row handbags suede top handle During 2025 the original was removed 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. Practically, this means the Soft Margaux is the version you can buy new, while the original is now a resale proposition. The comparison is thus between a current product and an archive one, and that changes the weight the specification differences should bear.
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. Five of them exist, and as a group they change daily behaviour rather than how the bag looks from across a street. Protective metal feet raise the base away from the ground. An interior toggle closure supplies the closing mechanism the open-top shape otherwise lacks. The profile can be cinched or released because of the belted side gussets. A zip pocket and card slots convert a deep cavity into something organised. The table below sets these out alongside the observed 2026 figures for the versions sold new.
| Feature | Soft Margaux 10 and 12 | Original Margaux |
|---|---|---|
| Protective metal feet | Fitted | Not specified |
| Interior toggle closure | Included | Absent from the specification |
| Belted side gussets | Fitted as standard | Absent from the specification |
| Zip pocket | Present on the 12 | Not part of the specification |
| Card slots | A single slot on the 10, two on the 12 | Not part of the specification |
| Observed 2026 pricing | $3,650 and $4,350 | Resale only |
Materials, Inside and Out
Stated as 100 percent calfskin in a matte grained finish, the Soft Margaux 10 and 12 are both lined in cotton herringbone. A lot about the brand’s priorities sits in that lining, because cotton herringbone inside is a textile decision rather than a branding one, holding shape without the plastic feel of a coated logo jacquard. Further up, the Margaux Shoulder 12 is lined in 100 percent lambskin, softer and more easily marked and considerably more expensive to work with. Exterior materials across the wider family include grained calfskin, saddle calfskin, suede, canvas paired with leather, and nylon, which means a Margaux is not automatically a smooth-leather bag. On the brand’s own product pages, Made in Italy is stated for the Soft Margaux 10 and 12 and for the Margaux Shoulder 12. The suede and canvas versions read differently in the hand and, importantly, perform differently on resale.
Hardware and How You Carry It
The Soft Margaux uses palladium-plated hardware, finished matte rather than polished, consistent with the rest of the collection. Any Margaux is signed by its pair of adjustable side buckles, and on genuine examples those buckles carry engraving, as do the base feet where feet are fitted. The buckles are functional rather than decorative, since they are what let the belted gussets 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. The Margaux Shoulder 12 trades that arrangement entirely for elongated tubular handles and narrowed gusseted side panels, so it is built 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.
Reading the Sizes and the Numbers
Because the number in the name is simply the bag’s width in inches, the family is easier to navigate than most. At 10 x 7 x 7.5 inches, the Soft Margaux 10 is genuinely compact yet unusually deep for its footprint. The Soft Margaux 12 measures 12 x 9 x 7.5 inches, keeping the same depth while adding two inches of width and two of height, and it 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 notwithstanding 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, while a Margaux 17 in a leather-and-canvas execution has been carried by Selfridges. Retail prices for those two cannot be verified, so take any quoted figure 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, beside the India and Agnes top handles and the Marlo totes. On the secondary market the picture is unusual — the Rebag CLAIR 2025 report put the Margaux Tote at 107 percent value retention, part of 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 puts 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. 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 Belongs in Your Wardrobe
The straightforward answer for anyone who wants the bag they can actually purchase new, with a warranty of availability and the fuller specification, is the Soft Margaux. Go for the 10 if you carry little and want the most sculptural version of the shape, and for the 12 if you want a working bag, since the second card slot and the zip pocket exist only at that size. Take the Margaux Shoulder 12 if you carry under the arm rather than in the hand, since its tubular handles and narrowed gussets are built for exactly that. Hunt down 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. Whichever you pick, note that the brand operates no public authenticity coding system at all, so verification rests on stitching, hand-painted edges, stamp placement and the weight and finish of the hardware. Buy black or neutral calfskin if resale matters to you; buy whatever colour you like if it does not.
- Answer hand-carry or shoulder first of all, as it divides Soft from Shoulder immediately
- Then size: the 10 for occasion carry, the 12 for daily use
- Material follows, and remember that canvas and seasonal colours discount on resale
- Only after that should an original on the secondary market be considered