The Row Margaux, Soft vs Original: The Specifications Compared
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 understandable, because the two bags share a name, a silhouette and a set of signature buckles, and because the shopping situation around them moved sharply in 2025. This is a specification-led comparison, not an impression-led one, setting measurements, materials, closures, linings and observed prices 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. 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 answer is that the Soft is not a cheaper or lazier Margaux — it is the better equipped one. The full version is below.
Two Bags Under a Name Through 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. The Soft Margaux arrived as a related but separately specified bag, with its own construction details and its own the row bags product pages. In 2025 the original went missing from third-party retailers, and the brand’s own webstore now fronts the Soft Margaux and the Margaux Shoulder instead of 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. What that means in practice is simple: the Soft Margaux is buyable new, and the original is a resale proposition. Comparing the two therefore means setting a current product against an archive one, which alters how much weight the specification differences deserve.
The Spec Sheet, Side by Side
The clearest way to see the difference is to isolate the features the Soft version adds and work through 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 hands the open-top shape a way to close. The profile can be cinched or released because of the belted side gussets. A deep cavity becomes something organised once a zip pocket and card slots are added. The table sets these out with the observed 2026 figures for the versions sold new.
| Specification detail | Soft Margaux 10 and 12 | Original Margaux |
|---|---|---|
| Protective metal feet | Included | Not part of the specification |
| Interior toggle closure | Present | Absent from the specification |
| Belted side gussets | Fitted | Absent from the specification |
| Zip pocket | Present on the 12 | Absent from the specification |
| Card slots | One on the 10, two on the 12 | Not specified |
| Price, observed 2026 | $3,650 and $4,350 | Resale only |
Exterior 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 choice of lining reveals 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 goes further and lines the bag in 100 percent lambskin, which is softer, 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. 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.
Buckles, Hardware 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. The buckles are functional, not decorative, because they are what allows the belted gussets to change the width of the bag. 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. If you want a single The Row bag that works hands-free without a strap, the Shoulder is the one rather than 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 with 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 measures 14.75 x 9 x 5 inches, so despite carrying a 12 in its name it is the widest and the shallowest of the three, because the number refers to the bag’s stated size rather than 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. Neither of those two has a retail price that can be verified, so treat any figure quoted for them as an asking price rather than a documented one.
What Each One Costs 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. 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 the same way, with the Margaux reported to sell frequently at around 40 percent above retail, Fashionphile resale reported up roughly 44 percent year on year, and The RealReal reporting pre-owned Margaux sales averaging about 15 percent over original retail. A major resale authenticator places new Margaux bags in the $5,000 to $9,000 range, which is a useful sanity check: anything advertised in the hundreds is almost certainly counterfeit. None of this is investment advice, and it is worth remembering that canvas, nylon and seasonal-colour versions discount rather than appreciate.
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. Take 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. Pick 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 you pick, note that 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. Where resale matters, black or neutral calfskin is the buy, and where it does not, buy the colour you actually want.
- Decide hand-carry or shoulder first, because that splits Soft from Shoulder immediately
- Size comes next: the 10 for occasion carry and the 12 for daily use
- Then material, remembering that canvas and seasonal colours discount on resale
- Only then consider an original on the secondary market