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The Row Loafers Store Half Moon Silhouette

Posted by Alexander on November 9th, 2026 (Uncategorized)

The Row Margaux, Soft vs Original: A Spec-by-Spec Comparison

Ask five people to explain the difference between the Margaux and the Soft Margaux and you will hear five confident, contradictory answers. The confusion is perfectly 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 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. 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 more equipped one. The full version is below.

Two Bags Carrying a Name Through a Complicated Year

The original Margaux is the flagship on which the brand built its handbag reputation, an unlined-looking tote that draws its structure from leather thickness and panel shaping rather than stiffeners. The Soft Margaux appeared as a related yet separately specified bag, with construction details www.therowbags.net and product pages of its own. During 2025 the original was withdrawn from third-party retailers, and the brand’s own webstore now shows the Soft Margaux and the Margaux Shoulder rather than the original.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. Practically, this means the Soft Margaux is the version you can buy new, while the original is now 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

The difference shows most cleanly when the features the Soft version adds are isolated and inspected one by one. Five of them exist, and as a group they change daily behaviour rather than how the bag looks from across a street. The base is kept off the ground by protective metal feet. An interior toggle closure finally 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 arranges them with observed 2026 figures for the versions still sold new.

Specification	Soft Margaux 10 and 12	Original Margaux
Protective metal feet	Included	Not part of the specification
Interior toggle closure	Present	Not in the specification
Belted side gussets	Fitted	Not part of the specification
Zip pocket	On the 12 only	Not in the specification
Card slots	One on the 10 and two on the 12	Not in the specification
Price, observed 2026	$3,650 and $4,350	Secondary market only

Materials, Inside and Out

Both the Soft Margaux 10 and 12 are stated as 100 percent calfskin in a matte grained finish, and both are lined in cotton herringbone. That choice of lining says 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 a step further, lining the bag in 100 percent lambskin — 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.

Buckles, Fittings and Handles

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. The buckles are functional, not decorative, because they are what allows the belted gussets to change the width of the bag. Both the Soft Margaux 10 and 12 run a 5-inch handle drop, 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 abandons that arrangement for elongated tubular handles and narrowed gusseted side panels, designed from the outset 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.

What the Size Numbers Actually Tell You

Because the number in the name is simply the bag’s width in inches, the family is 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. 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 choose 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, 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.

What Each One 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. That places the entire family in the collection’s top band, alongside 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 it amounts to investment advice, and canvas, nylon and seasonal-colour versions are worth remembering as the ones that discount rather than appreciate.

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. Take 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. 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 exactly that. Go after the original on resale only when you specifically want the archive version and are content to buy without metal feet, a toggle closure or interior organisation. Whichever 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, and buy whatever colour you like if it does not.

1. Settle hand-carry or shoulder first, since 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. Consider an original on the secondary market only at that point

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