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

Ask five people what the difference is between the Margaux and the Soft Margaux and you will get 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. Below is a specification-led comparison rather than an impression-led one, putting measurements, materials, closures, linings and observed prices side by side 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 better equipped one. The full version is below.

One Name, Two Bags, and a 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. The Soft Margaux arrived as a related but separately specified bag, 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 shows the Soft Margaux and the Margaux Shoulder instead of 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. Practically speaking, the Soft Margaux is the one you can buy new and the original is now a resale proposition. The comparison is thus between a current product and an archive one, and that changes the weight the specification differences should hold.

Side the row mini shoulder bags by Side on the Spec Sheet

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 all, and collectively they alter how the bag behaves in daily use rather than how it reads 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 shut. Belted side gussets make the profile adjustable, cinched or released. A zip pocket and card slots transform a deep cavity into something organised. The table sets these out with the observed 2026 figures for the versions sold new.

Materials and Linings

The Soft Margaux 10 and 12 are each given as 100 percent calfskin in a matte grained finish, with cotton herringbone lining in both. That lining choice tells you quite a lot 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. Further up, the Margaux Shoulder 12 is lined in 100 percent lambskin, softer and more easily marked and considerably more expensive to work with. The wider family covers grained calfskin, saddle calfskin, suede, canvas paired with leather, and nylon on the outside, so no one should assume a Margaux is 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 seem different in the hand and, more importantly, behave differently on resale.

Hardware and How You Carry It

Hardware on the Soft Margaux is palladium-plated and finished matte rather than polished, in keeping 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 change the width of the bag. 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. The Margaux Shoulder 12 swaps that arrangement out entirely for elongated tubular handles and narrowed gusseted side panels, so it is built 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.

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, keeping the same depth while gaining two inches of width and two of height, and that is the size most buyers settle 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 refers to the bag’s stated size rather than its maximum external span. A Soft Margaux 15 is in circulation, while a Margaux 17 in a leather-and-canvas execution has been carried by Selfridges. Retail prices for those two cannot be verified, so take any quoted figure as an asking price rather than a documented one.

Prices Now, and What Resale Is Doing

Observed 2026 market pricing sets the Soft Margaux 10 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, alongside the India and Agnes top handles and the Marlo totes. The secondary market picture is an unusual one: the Rebag CLAIR 2025 report recorded the Margaux Tote at 107 percent value retention, inside a brand-level figure of 97 percent that lifted 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. A major resale authenticator puts new Margaux bags in the $5,000 to $9,000 range, a useful sanity check, since anything advertised in the hundreds is almost certainly counterfeit. None of this is investment advice, and it is worth bearing in mind that canvas, nylon and seasonal-colour versions discount rather than appreciate.

Which Version 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. 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. Opt for 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. 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 the choice, the brand runs no public authenticity coding system of any kind, 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. 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, keeping in mind that canvas and seasonal colours discount on resale
4. Only after that should an original on the secondary market come into it