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The Row Margaux: Soft Margaux vs the Original, Spec by Spec

Ask five people to describe the difference between the Margaux and the Soft Margaux and you will collect 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 shifted 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 draws 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. 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 comes next.

One Name, Two Bags, and a Complicated Year

The original Margaux is the flagship on which the brand built its handbag reputation, an unlined-looking tote that takes its structure from leather thickness and panel shaping rather than stiffeners. Related but specified separately, the Soft Margaux arrived with its own construction details and its own product pages. In 2025 the original disappeared from third-party retailers, and the row top handle bag brand’s own webstore now fronts the Soft Margaux and the Margaux Shoulder instead of 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. In practice this means the Soft Margaux is the version on sale new, while the original has become 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 weighted.

The Specifications, Side by Side

The clearest way to see the difference is to isolate the features the Soft version adds and take 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 lift the base away from the ground. An interior toggle closure gives the open-top shape a way to close. Belted side gussets make the profile variable, cinched or released. Adding a zip pocket and card slots turns a deep cavity into organised storage. The table lays them out with observed 2026 figures for the versions still sold new.

Materials and Linings

The Soft Margaux 10 and 12 are each specified as 100 percent calfskin in a matte grained finish, with cotton herringbone lining in both. That lining choice tells you plenty 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 goes a step further, lining the bag in 100 percent lambskin — 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. The brand’s own product pages state Made in Italy 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.

Hardware, Buckles and Handles

Hardware on the Soft Margaux is palladium-plated and finished matte rather than polished, in keeping with the rest of the collection. What signs any Margaux is the pair of adjustable side buckles; on genuine examples they are engraved, and so are 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 replaces that arrangement entirely for elongated tubular handles and narrowed gusseted side panels, so it is built from the start 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.

The Sizes and the Numbers Behind Them

Because the number in the name is simply the bag’s width in inches, the family is easier to navigate than most. The Soft Margaux 10 arrives at 10 x 7 x 7.5 inches, genuinely compact with an unusual amount of depth for the footprint. At 12 x 9 x 7.5 inches, the Soft Margaux 12 keeps the depth and adds two inches of width and two of height, which is why most buyers settle on it 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 out there as well, and a leather-and-canvas Margaux 17 has been carried by Selfridges. No verifiable retail price exists for either, so read any figure quoted for them as an asking price and not 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. 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. The softer secondary numbers say the same thing — frequent Margaux sales reported 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. One major resale authenticator sets new Margaux bags in the $5,000 to $9,000 range, and that is a useful sanity check, because 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 Fits Your Carry

If you want the bag you can actually 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. 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. Whatever the choice, the brand runs no public authenticity coding system whatsoever, 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, and buy whatever colour you like if it does not.

1. Nail down hand-carry or shoulder first, since that splits Soft from Shoulder immediately
2. Then settle size, with the 10 for occasion carry and the 12 for daily use
3. Material follows, and remember that canvas and seasonal colours discount on resale
4. Consider an original on the secondary market only at that point