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

Take the difference between the Margaux and the Soft Margaux to five people and five confident, contradictory answers come back. 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 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. The material here is built 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 noted 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, One Complicated Year

The original Margaux is the flagship the brand built its handbag reputation on, an unlined-looking tote whose structure rests on 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. 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. In practice this means the Soft Margaux is the version on sale new, while the original has become a resale proposition. Comparing the two therefore means setting a current product against an archive one, which shifts how much weight the specification differences deserve.

The Spec Sheet, Laid Out Side by Side

Isolating the features the Soft version adds and checking them one at a time is the ysl envelope bag cleanest way to see the difference. 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. The base is kept off the ground by protective metal feet. An interior toggle closure gives the open-top shape a way to close. The profile can be cinched or released because of the belted side gussets. A zip pocket and card slots turn a deep cavity into something organised. The table below sets these out alongside the observed 2026 figures for the versions sold new.

Materials, Inside and Out

The Soft Margaux 10 and 12 are both listed as 100 percent calfskin in a matte grained finish, and both are lined in cotton herringbone. A good deal 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 takes it further with a 100 percent lambskin lining, which is softer, marks more readily and costs considerably more to work with. Across the wider family the exterior materials include grained calfskin, saddle calfskin, suede, canvas paired with leather, and nylon, so 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. Suede and canvas versions read differently in the hand and, importantly, behave differently on resale.

Buckles, Hardware and Handles

The Soft Margaux carries palladium-plated hardware, finished matte rather than polished, consistent 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. Utility rather than decoration is the point of the buckles, as they are what enables the belted gussets to change the bag’s width. The Soft Margaux 10 and 12 both run a 5-inch handle drop, which is 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. Elongated tubular handles and narrowed gusseted side panels replace the arrangement entirely on the Margaux Shoulder 12, which is designed 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.

What the Size Numbers Actually Tell You

The number in the name is just the width of the bag in inches, which makes this family easier to navigate than most. The Soft Margaux 10 measures 10 x 7 x 7.5 inches, which is a genuinely compact bag with an unusual amount of depth 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 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 denotes 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. Neither of them has a verifiable retail price, so any figure quoted for them should be treated 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. 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 lifted 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. This is not investment advice, and it is worth remembering that canvas, nylon and seasonal-colour versions discount in place of appreciating.

Choosing Your Version

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. The Margaux Shoulder 12 is the pick if your carry is under the arm rather than in the hand, because 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 pick, note that the brand runs no public authenticity coding system at all, so verification comes down to stitching, hand-painted edges, stamp placement and the weight and finish of the hardware. If resale matters, buy black or neutral calfskin, and if it does not, buy whatever colour you like.

1. Decide hand-carry or shoulder first, because that splits Soft from Shoulder immediately
2. Then size: the 10 for occasion carry, the 12 for daily use
3. Then material, remembering that canvas and seasonal colours discount on resale
4. And only then consider an original on the secondary market