The Row Margaux: How the Soft Margaux and the Original Part Ways, Spec by Spec
Ask five people to spell out the difference between the Margaux and the Soft Margaux and you will collect five confident, contradictory answers. That confusion makes sense, 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 specification-led rather than impression-led — measurements, materials, closures, linings and observed prices, set against each other line by line. Everything here is sourced from what the brand states on its product pages and from prices observed in the market in 2026, which are observations and not an official price list. If a figure is not reliably documented, that is flagged here instead of guessed at, because 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 a better equipped one. The long version is below.
Two Bags Carrying a Name Through 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 arrived as a related but separately specified bag, with its own construction details and its own product pages. Over the course of 2025 the original was pulled from third-party retailers, and the brand’s own webstore now shows 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 the row designer tote bags 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 carry.
Side by Side on the Spec Sheet
The cleanest 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. The base is kept off the ground by protective metal feet. An interior toggle closure gives the open-top shape a way to shut. The profile can be cinched or released because of the belted side gussets. A zip pocket and card slots turn a deep cavity into something organised. The table arranges them with observed 2026 figures for the versions still sold new.
| Specification | Soft Margaux 10 and 12 | Original Margaux |
|---|---|---|
| Protective metal feet | Fitted as standard | Absent from the specification |
| Interior toggle closure | Fitted | Not part of the specification |
| Belted side gussets | Fitted | Not part of the specification |
| Zip pocket | On the 12 only | Not specified |
| Card slots | One in the 10, two in the 12 | Not in the specification |
| Observed 2026 price | $3,650 and $4,350 | Available on resale only |
Materials, Outside and In
The Soft Margaux 10 and 12 are each given as 100 percent calfskin in a matte grained finish, with cotton herringbone lining in both. 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 exterior materials include grained calfskin, saddle calfskin, suede, canvas paired with leather, and nylon, so 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. Suede and canvas versions read different in the hand and, more importantly, behave differently on resale.
Hardware, Buckles and Handles
The Soft Margaux uses palladium-plated hardware, finished matte rather than polished, 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 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. 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.
Sizes, and What the Numbers Actually Mean
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, holding 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. The Margaux Shoulder 12 measures 14.75 x 9 x 5 inches, so despite the 12 in its name it is the widest and shallowest of the three, since the number refers to the bag’s stated size rather than its maximum external span. There is a Soft Margaux 15 in circulation, and Selfridges has carried a Margaux 17 in a leather-and-canvas execution. Retail prices for those two cannot be verified, so take any quoted figure as an asking price rather than a documented one.
What They Cost and How Resale Reacts
Observed 2026 market pricing puts the Soft Margaux 10 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, alongside 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 took 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. New Margaux bags are placed in the $5,000 to $9,000 range by a major resale authenticator, which makes a useful sanity check: 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 rather than appreciating.
Which Version to Buy
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. 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. Go after the original on resale only when you specifically want the archive version and are content to buy without metal feet, a toggle closure or interior organisation. Whichever one 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. If resale matters, buy black or neutral calfskin, and if it does not, buy whatever colour you like.
- Start with hand-carry or shoulder, because that separates Soft from Shoulder straight away
- 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 then consider an original on the secondary market