The Row Handbag Buyer Guide Season Edit

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

Take the difference between the Margaux and the Soft Margaux to five people and five confident, contradictory answers come back. The confusion is entirely 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 a specification-led comparison rather than an impression-led one: measurements, materials, closures, linings and observed prices, set 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. If a figure is not reliably documented, that is stated here instead of guessed at, because the Margaux is the single most misquoted bag in the label’s catalogue. The short version 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, and One Confusing 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. Related but specified separately, the Soft Margaux arrived 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 The original was withdrawn from third-party retailers during 2025, and the brand’s own webstore now presents the Soft Margaux and the Margaux Shoulder in its place. Its discontinuation has been widely reported, though the brand has never officially confirmed it, and that distinction is not pedantry when you are deciding what to pay on the secondary market. In practice this means the Soft Margaux is the version available 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 Spec Sheet, Side by Side

The simplest way to see the difference is to isolate the features the Soft version adds and check 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 hold the base away from the ground. An interior toggle therowhandbags.net closure finally gives the open-top shape a way to close. The profile can be cinched or released because of the belted side gussets. Adding a zip pocket and card slots turns a deep cavity into a structured interior. The table sets these out with the observed 2026 figures for the versions sold new.

Exterior Materials and Linings

The Soft Margaux 10 and 12 are both stated as 100 percent calfskin in a matte grained finish, and both are lined in cotton herringbone. Much 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 further still 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. The brand’s own product pages state Made in Italy for the Soft Margaux 10 and 12 and for the Margaux Shoulder 12. 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. The signature element on any Margaux is the pair of adjustable side buckles, and on genuine examples those buckles are engraved, as 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. 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 close the gap. The Margaux Shoulder 12 replaces that arrangement entirely with elongated tubular handles and narrowed gusseted side panels, so it is designed from the start to sit under the arm. If you want one The Row bag that works hands-free without a strap, the Shoulder is the answer rather than the Soft.

Sizes and What the Numbers Mean

The number in the name is simply the width of the bag in inches, which makes the family easier to navigate than most. The Soft Margaux 10 measures in at 10 x 7 x 7.5 inches, genuinely compact with an unusual amount of depth for the footprint. The Soft Margaux 12 runs 12 x 9 x 7.5 inches, same depth with two inches more width and two more of height, and that is the size most buyers land on for daily use. The Margaux Shoulder 12 comes in at 14.75 x 9 x 5 inches, which makes it the widest and shallowest of the three despite the 12 in its name, as the number records 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. No verifiable retail price exists for either, so read any figure quoted for them as an asking price and not a documented one.

What They Cost and How Resale Responds

In observed 2026 market pricing the Soft Margaux 10 is $3,650 and the Soft Margaux 12 is $4,350, while the Margaux Shoulder 12 is $4,900. Those figures place the whole family in the collection’s top band, next to 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 places 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 One to Buy

If what you want is the bag you can actually buy new, with a warranty of availability and the fuller specification, the Soft Margaux is the straightforward answer. Pick 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. Pick the Margaux Shoulder 12 when the arm rather than the hand is how you carry, as its tubular handles and narrowed gussets exist for that purpose. Chase the original on resale only if you specifically want the archive version and you are comfortable buying without metal feet, a toggle closure or interior organisation. Whatever 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.

1. Settle hand-carry or shoulder first, since that splits Soft from Shoulder immediately
2. Size comes next: the 10 for occasion carry and the 12 for daily use
3. Then material, remembering that canvas and seasonal colours discount on resale
4. Only after that should an original on the secondary market come into it