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The Row Margaux, Soft vs Original: The Specifications Compared

Ask five different people how the Margaux and the Soft Margaux differ and you will hear five confident, conflicting answers. That confusion is fair, since the two bags share a name, a silhouette and a set of signature buckles, and since the shopping situation around them moved 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 is built 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. Any figure that is not reliably documented is flagged as such rather than assumed, as 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 follows.

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 comes from leather thickness and panel shaping rather than from stiffeners. The Soft Margaux arrived as a related but separately specified bag, with its own construction details and its own product pages. During 2025 the original was withdrawn from third-party retailers, and the brand’s own webstore now presents the Soft Margaux and the Margaux Shoulder rather than the original. Reports of its discontinuation are widespread, but no official confirmation has ever come from the brand, and that difference tells rather than being pedantry when you are setting a price on the secondary market. What https://rowbag.com/ that means in practice is simple: the Soft Margaux is buyable new, and the original is 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.

Two Spec Sheets, One Table

The difference shows most cleanly when the features the Soft version adds are isolated and examined one by one. 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 gives the open-top shape a way to shut. Belted side gussets let the profile be cinched or released. Adding a zip pocket and card slots turns a deep cavity into a structured interior. The table arranges them with observed 2026 figures for the versions still sold new.

Materials, Outside and In

The Soft Margaux 10 and 12 are both stated as 100 percent calfskin in a matte grained finish, and both are lined in cotton herringbone. A good deal 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. Across the wider family the exteriors extend to grained calfskin, saddle calfskin, suede, canvas paired with leather, and nylon, so 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 as well. The suede and canvas versions read differently in the hand and, crucially, perform differently on resale.

Buckles, Hardware 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 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 rather than decorative, since they are what let the belted gussets change the width of the bag. A 5-inch handle drop is common to the Soft Margaux 10 and 12, which puts it in hand-carry or crook-of-the-elbow territory rather than shoulder territory, 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. Where the requirement is one The Row bag that goes hands-free without a strap, the Shoulder is the answer, not the Soft.

What the Size Numbers Actually Tell You

The number in the name is just the width of the bag in inches, which makes this family easier to navigate than most. The Soft Margaux 10 measures in at 10 x 7 x 7.5 inches, genuinely compact with an unusual amount of depth for the 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 land 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 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. 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

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. The family therefore sits in the collection’s top band, in company with 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 carried 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 it amounts to investment advice, and canvas, nylon and seasonal-colour versions are worth remembering as the ones that discount rather than appreciate.

Which One to Buy

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. 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. 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. Only pursue the original on resale if the archive version is specifically what you want and you are comfortable going 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. Buy black or neutral calfskin if resale matters to you; 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 choose material, mindful that canvas and seasonal colours discount on resale
4. Only then consider an original on the secondary market