The Row Margaux, Soft vs Original: A Spec-by-Spec Comparison
Ask five people what the difference is between the Margaux and the Soft Margaux and you will get five confident and contradictory answers. The confusion is wholly 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, placed against each other line by line. All of it comes from what the brand states on its own product pages and from prices observed in the market in 2026 — observations, 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 the better equipped one. The long version is below.
Two Bags, One Name, One Complicated Year
The brand built its handbag reputation on the original Margaux, an unlined-looking tote whose structure comes from leather thickness and panel shaping in place of stiffeners. The Soft Margaux arrived as a related but separately specified bag, 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 The original was withdrawn from third-party retailers during 2025, and the brand’s own webstore now presents the Soft Margaux and the Margaux Shoulder in its place. Widely reported as discontinued, it has never been officially confirmed as such by the brand, and the 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. Comparing the two therefore means setting a shop now current product against an archive one, which alters how much weight the specification differences deserve.
The Specifications, Side by Side
The difference shows most cleanly when the features the Soft version adds are isolated and inspected one by one. 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 keep the base off the ground. The open-top shape gets a way to shut thanks to an interior toggle closure. Belted side gussets let the profile be cinched or released. Adding a zip pocket and card slots turns a deep cavity into an organised interior. The table lays them out with observed 2026 figures for the versions still sold new.
| Spec | Soft Margaux 10 and 12 | Original Margaux |
|---|---|---|
| Protective metal feet | Present | Absent from the specification |
| Interior toggle closure | Present | Absent from the specification |
| Belted side gussets | Fitted | Not in the specification |
| Zip pocket | On the 12 only | Not specified |
| Card slots | One on the 10, two on the 12 | Not part of the specification |
| Price, observed 2026 | $3,650 and $4,350 | Resale market only |
Materials, Outside and In
Stated as 100 percent calfskin in a matte grained finish, the Soft Margaux 10 and 12 are both lined in cotton herringbone. The lining choice reveals plenty about the brand’s priorities: a cotton herringbone interior is a textile decision, not a branding one, and it holds shape without introducing the plastic feel of a coated logo jacquard. The Margaux Shoulder 12 goes further still with a 100 percent lambskin lining, which is softer, marks more readily and costs considerably more to work with. The wider family encompasses 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. On the brand’s own product pages, Made in Italy is printed for the Soft Margaux 10 and 12 and for the Margaux Shoulder 12. The suede and canvas versions read differently in the hand and, critically, perform differently on resale.
Hardware, Buckles 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. 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. Those buckles do real work rather than decoration: they are what lets 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 drops that arrangement for elongated tubular handles and narrowed gusseted side panels, designed from the outset 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.
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 follow than most. The Soft Margaux 10 measures 10 x 7 x 7.5 inches, a genuinely compact bag carrying 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. At 14.75 x 9 x 5 inches, the Margaux Shoulder 12 is the widest and shallowest of the three in spite of the 12 in its name, because that number refers to the bag’s stated size and not 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. 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.
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. 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. 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. 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 Suits You
Want the bag you can genuinely purchase new, with a warranty of availability and the fuller specification? The Soft Margaux is the straightforward answer. 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 precisely that. Go after the original on resale only when you specifically want the archive version and are willing to buy 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.
- Resolve hand-carry or shoulder first, since that splits Soft from Shoulder immediately
- Then fix size, with the 10 for occasion carry and the 12 for daily use
- Material follows, and remember that canvas and seasonal colours discount on resale
- And only then weigh an original on the secondary market