The Row Margaux: How the Soft Margaux and the Original Part Ways, Spec by Spec

Ask five different people how the Margaux and the Soft Margaux differ and you will hear five confident, conflicting 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. Everything here comes from what the brand states on its product pages and from prices observed in the market in 2026, which are observations rather than 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. The short answer is that the Soft is not a cheaper or lazier Margaux — it is a more equipped one. The long version follows.

Two Bags, One Name, One Complicated Year

An unlined-looking tote that takes its structure from leather thickness and panel shaping rather than stiffeners, the original Margaux is the flagship the brand’s handbag reputation was built on. 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 brand’s own webstore now fronts the Soft Margaux and the Margaux Shoulder instead of the original. Its discontinuation has been widely reported, but it has never been officially confirmed by the brand, and that 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 rowbag.com/tote-bags 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.

The Spec Sheet, 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. 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 hold the base away from the ground. An interior toggle closure gives the open-top shape a way to shut. Belted side gussets make the profile variable, cinched or released. A deep cavity becomes something organised once a zip pocket and card slots are added. The table below sets these out alongside the observed 2026 figures for the versions sold new.

Materials, Outside and In

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 choice of lining reveals a great deal about the brand’s priorities, since a cotton herringbone interior is a textile decision rather than a branding one, and it holds shape without the plastic feel of a coated logo jacquard. Further up, the Margaux Shoulder 12 is lined in 100 percent lambskin, softer and 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. On the brand’s own product pages, Made in Italy is given 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 and How You Carry It

The Soft Margaux carries palladium-plated hardware, finished matte rather than polished, consistent 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. The buckles are functional rather than decorative, since they are what let the belted gussets change the width of the bag. The Soft Margaux 10 and 12 share a 5-inch handle drop, which is a hand-carry or crook-of-the-elbow figure and not a shoulder one, so both come with a removable shoulder strap to cover it. The Margaux Shoulder 12 trades 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.

Sizes and What the Numbers Mean

The number in the name is only the width of the bag in inches, which makes the family easier to navigate than most. The Soft Margaux 10 comes in at 10 x 7 x 7.5 inches, genuinely compact with an unusual amount of depth for the 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 carrying a 12 in its name it is the widest and the shallowest of the three, because 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. 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. 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 took the label into the report’s unicorn tier for the first time. Less firm secondary figures agree, 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. 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 remembering that canvas, nylon and seasonal-colour versions discount rather than appreciate.

Which Version to Buy

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. 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. 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 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.

1. Start with hand-carry or shoulder, because that separates Soft from Shoulder straight away
2. Size comes next: the 10 for occasion carry and the 12 for daily use
3. Then choose material, mindful that canvas and seasonal colours discount on resale
4. Only after that should an original on the secondary market be considered