The Row Margaux: Soft Margaux vs the Original, Point by Point
Ask five different people how the Margaux and the Soft Margaux differ and you will hear five confident, mutually exclusive 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 shifted 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. 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. 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. In short, the Soft is not a cheaper or lazier Margaux; it is the more equipped of the two. The long version is below.
Two Bags, One Name, One Complicated Year
The original Margaux is the flagship the brand built its handbag reputation on, an unlined-looking tote whose structure derives from leather thickness and panel shaping rather than from stiffeners. The Soft Margaux entered as a related but separately specified bag, carrying 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. 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. What that means in practice is simple: the Soft Margaux is buyable new, and the original is a resale proposition. Anyone comparing the two is therefore comparing a current product against an archive one, which changes how the specification differences should be weighed.
The Spec Sheet, Side by Side
Isolating the features the Soft version adds and checking them one at a time is the cleanest way to see the difference. Five of them exist, and as a group they change daily behaviour rather ysl mini shoulder bag 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. Belted side gussets make the profile adjustable, cinched or released. Adding a zip pocket and card slots turns a deep cavity into organised storage. These are set out in the table with the observed 2026 figures for the versions sold new.
| Specification detail | Soft Margaux 10 and 12 | Original Margaux |
|---|---|---|
| Protective metal feet | Present | Absent from the specification |
| Interior toggle closure | Fitted | Not in the specification |
| Belted side gussets | Fitted as standard | Not in the specification |
| Zip pocket | On the 12 only | Not specified |
| Card slots | A single slot on the 10, two on the 12 | Not in the specification |
| Observed 2026 pricing | $3,650 and $4,350 | Available on resale only |
The Materials and What Lines Them
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 lining choice tells you a good deal about the brand’s priorities, because a cotton herringbone interior is a textile decision rather than a branding one, and it holds shape without adding the plastic feel of a coated logo jacquard. The Margaux Shoulder 12 takes it further with a 100 percent lambskin lining, which is softer, marks more readily and costs considerably more 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 as well. In the hand, suede and canvas versions read differently, and on resale they behave differently too.
The Hardware, the Buckles and the Handles
The Soft Margaux uses palladium-plated hardware, finished matte rather than polished, consistent with the rest of the collection. Any Margaux is identified 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 adjust 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 swaps that arrangement out entirely for elongated tubular handles and narrowed gusseted side panels, so it is built 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 answers that rather than the Soft.
Reading the Sizes and the Numbers
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 carrying 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 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. A Soft Margaux 15 is in circulation, and a Margaux 17 in a leather-and-canvas execution 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.
What Each Costs, 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. That places the entire family 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 pushed 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 this is investment advice, and it is worth keeping in mind that canvas, nylon and seasonal-colour versions discount rather than appreciate.
Which Version Belongs in Your Wardrobe
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. 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. Choose the Margaux Shoulder 12 if the way you carry a bag is under the arm rather than in the hand, because its 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. Whichever 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. Buy black or neutral calfskin if resale matters to you; buy whatever colour you like if it does not.
- Nail down hand-carry or shoulder first, since that splits Soft from Shoulder immediately
- Then size — the 10 for occasion carry, the 12 for daily use
- Then material, remembering that canvas and seasonal colours discount on resale
- Only after that should an original on the secondary market be considered