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

Ask five different people how the Margaux and the Soft Margaux differ and you will hear five confident, conflicting 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 a specification-led comparison rather than an impression-led one: measurements, materials, closures, linings and observed prices, set against each other line by line. The material here draws on what the brand states on its product pages plus prices observed in the market in 2026, which remain 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. 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, One Name, One Complicated Year

The original Margaux is the flagship on which the brand built its handbag reputation, an unlined-looking tote that derives its structure from leather thickness and panel shaping rather than stiffeners. Related but specified separately, the Soft Margaux arrived with its own construction details and its own product pages. The original was withdrawn from third-party retailers during 2025, and the brand’s own webstore now presents the Soft Margaux and the Margaux Shoulder in its place. Its discontinuation has been widely reported, though the brand has never officially confirmed it, and that distinction is not pedantry when you are deciding what to pay on the secondary market. In practice this means the Soft Margaux is the version available new, while the original has become a resale proposition. The comparison is thus between a current product and an archive one, and that changes the weight the specification differences should carry.

Two Spec Sheets, One Table

Isolating the features the Soft version adds and checking them one at www.therowbags.org a time is the cleanest way to see the difference. Five of them exist, and as a group they change daily behaviour rather than how the bag looks from across a street. The base is kept off the ground by protective metal feet. The open-top shape acquires a way to shut thanks to an interior toggle closure. Belted side gussets let the profile be cinched or released. A zip pocket and card slots convert a deep cavity into something organised. The table arranges them with observed 2026 figures for the versions still sold new.

Materials and Linings

The Soft Margaux 10 and 12 are each given as 100 percent calfskin in a matte grained finish, with cotton herringbone lining in both. Much 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. 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 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. Made in Italy is stated on the brand’s own product pages 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.

Hardware and How You Carry It

The Soft Margaux runs palladium-plated hardware, finished matte rather than polished, consistent 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. 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 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.

The Sizes and the Numbers Behind Them

The name’s number gives nothing more than the bag’s width in inches, and that makes the family easier to navigate than most. The Soft Margaux 10 measures 10 x 7 x 7.5 inches, a genuinely compact bag packing unusual depth for its footprint. The Soft Margaux 12 measures 12 x 9 x 7.5 inches, keeping the same depth while gaining two inches of width and two of height, and that is the size most buyers settle on for daily use. The Margaux Shoulder 12 comes in at 14.75 x 9 x 5 inches, which makes it the widest and shallowest of the three despite the 12 in its name, as the number records the bag’s stated size rather than 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.

The Money: Retail and Resale

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. Those figures place the whole family 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. A major resale authenticator puts new Margaux bags in the $5,000 to $9,000 range, a useful sanity check, since 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

If what you want is the bag you can actually buy 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. 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. Go looking for 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 you choose, remember there is no public authenticity coding system from the brand at all, which leaves verification 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; buy whatever colour you like if it does not.

1. Decide hand-carry or shoulder first, because that splits Soft from Shoulder immediately
2. Then fix size, with the 10 for occasion carry and the 12 for daily use
3. Then material, remembering that canvas and seasonal colours discount on resale
4. Only then consider an original on the secondary market