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

Ask five people to explain the difference between the Margaux and the Soft Margaux and you will get five confident, contradictory answers. That confusion makes sense, since the two bags share a name, a silhouette and a set of signature buckles, and since the shopping situation around them moved sharply in 2025. What follows is specification-led rather than impression-led — 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. 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. 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, One Name, and One Messy 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 appeared as a related yet separately specified bag, with construction details and product pages of its own. In 2025 the original vanished from third-party retailers, and the brand’s www.laurentoutlet.com own webstore now leads with 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. In practice this means the Soft Margaux is the version obtainable 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, Side by Side

The difference shows most cleanly when the features the Soft version adds are isolated and inspected one by one. Five features in all, and collectively they change how the bag behaves in daily use rather than how it reads from across a street. Protective metal feet lift the base away from the ground. An interior toggle closure finally gives the open-top shape a way to close. Belted side gussets make the profile variable, cinched or released. Adding a zip pocket and card slots turns a deep cavity into organised storage. These are set out in the table with the observed 2026 figures for the versions sold new.

The Materials and What Lines Them

Stated as 100 percent calfskin in a matte grained finish, the Soft Margaux 10 and 12 are both 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. The Margaux Shoulder 12 goes further and lines the bag in 100 percent lambskin, which is softer, more easily marked and considerably more expensive 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. On the brand’s own product pages, Made in Italy is printed 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

On the Soft Margaux the hardware is palladium-plated, matte rather than polished in finish, matching the rest of the collection. What marks any Margaux is the pair of adjustable side buckles; on genuine examples they are engraved, and so 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. 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 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. For one The Row bag that carries hands-free without a strap, the answer is the Shoulder and not the Soft.

Reading the Sizes and the Numbers

The number in the name is just the width of the bag in inches, which makes this family easier to follow than most. The Soft Margaux 10 measures 10 x 7 x 7.5 inches, a genuinely compact bag carrying unusual depth for its footprint. The Soft Margaux 12 measures 12 x 9 x 7.5 inches, retaining 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 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. There is a Soft Margaux 15 in circulation, and Selfridges has carried a Margaux 17 in a leather-and-canvas execution. No verifiable retail price exists for either, so read any figure quoted for them as an asking price and not a documented one.

The Money: Retail and Resale

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 place the whole family 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. 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 puts 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.

Choosing Your Version

Want the bag you can really purchase new, with a warranty of availability and the fuller specification? The Soft Margaux is the straightforward answer. Go for the 10 if you carry little and want the most sculptural version of the shape, and for the 12 if you want a working bag, since the second card slot and the zip pocket exist only 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. 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 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. Where resale matters, black or neutral calfskin is the buy, and where it does not, buy the colour you actually want.

1. Answer hand-carry or shoulder first of all, as it divides Soft from Shoulder immediately
2. Then decide 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 come into it