The Row Margaux, Soft vs Original: The Specifications Compared

Ask five different people how the Margaux and the Soft Margaux differ and you will hear five confident, conflicting answers. It is understandable confusion, given that the two share a name, a silhouette and a set of signature buckles, and that 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. The material here rests 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. Any figure that is not reliably documented is flagged as such rather than invented, as 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 Under a Name Through a 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. 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 The original was withdrawn from third-party retailers during 2025, and the brand’s own webstore now presents the Soft Margaux and the Margaux Shoulder in its place.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, 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. What that means in practice is simple: the Soft Margaux is buyable new, and the original is a resale proposition. Comparing the two therefore means setting a current product against an archive one, which changes how much weight the specification differences deserve.

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 features in ysl purses all, and collectively they shift how the bag behaves in daily use rather than how it reads from across a street. Protective metal feet keep the base off the ground. An interior toggle closure hands the open-top shape a way to close. Belted side gussets make the profile adjustable, cinched or released. 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.

Materials, Outside and In

The Soft Margaux 10 and 12 are each given as 100 percent calfskin in a matte grained finish, with cotton herringbone lining in both. 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. 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.

Buckles, Hardware 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. The signature element on any Margaux is its pair of adjustable side buckles, and on genuine examples the buckles are engraved, as are 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. A 5-inch handle drop is common to the Soft Margaux 10 and 12, which puts it in hand-carry or crook-of-the-elbow territory rather than shoulder territory, and both include a removable shoulder strap to cover the difference. The Margaux Shoulder 12 discards that arrangement for elongated tubular handles and narrowed gusseted side panels, designed from the outset to sit under the arm. If you want a single The Row bag that works hands-free without a strap, the Shoulder is the pick 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. At 10 x 7 x 7.5 inches, the Soft Margaux 10 is genuinely compact yet unusually deep for its 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 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. 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.

What They Cost and How Resale Behaves

In observed 2026 market pricing the Soft Margaux 10 sits at $3,650 and the Soft Margaux 12 at $4,350, with the Margaux Shoulder 12 at $4,900. Those figures set 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. Softer secondary figures point in the same direction: the Margaux is reported to sell frequently at around 40 percent above retail, Fashionphile resale is reported up roughly 44 percent year on year, and The RealReal reports 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 Choose

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. 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. Pursue 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. Start with hand-carry or shoulder, because that separates Soft from Shoulder straight away
2. Then fix 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. Only after that should an original on the secondary market be considered