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

Ask five people to describe the difference between the Margaux and the Soft Margaux and you will get five confident, contradictory 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 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 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 guessed, 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 longer version is set out 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 comes from leather thickness and panel shaping rather than from stiffeners. The Soft Margaux entered as a related but separately specified bag, carrying 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. 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 ysl sale Margaux is the version on sale new, while the original has become a resale proposition. The comparison is thus between a current product and an archive one, and that changes the weight the specification differences should bear.

The Spec Sheet, Set Out Side by Side

The difference shows most cleanly when the features the Soft version adds are isolated and inspected one by one. There are five in total, and together they change how the bag behaves in daily use rather than how it appears from across a street. Protective metal feet hold the base away from the ground. An interior toggle closure supplies the closing mechanism the open-top shape otherwise lacks. Belted side gussets make the profile variable, cinched or released. A deep cavity becomes something organised once a zip pocket and card slots are added. The table sets these out with the observed 2026 figures for the versions sold new.

The Materials and What Lines Them

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 tells you 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. 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. 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 read differently in the hand and, importantly, behave differently on resale.

Buckles, Fittings 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 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 alter 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 trades that arrangement 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 one The Row bag that works hands-free without a strap, the Shoulder is the answer rather than the Soft.

Sizes, and What the Numbers Really Mean

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 comes in at 10 x 7 x 7.5 inches, genuinely compact with an unusual amount of depth for the 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 them has a verifiable retail price, so any figure quoted for them should be treated as an asking price rather than a documented one.

The Money: Retail and Resale

In observed 2026 market pricing the Soft Margaux 10 is $3,650 and the Soft Margaux 12 is $4,350, while the Margaux Shoulder 12 is $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 lifted the label into the report’s unicorn tier for the first time. Less firm secondary figures agree, 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. One major resale authenticator places 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. This is not investment advice, and it is worth remembering that canvas, nylon and seasonal-colour versions discount instead of appreciating.

Which Version to Buy

The straightforward answer for anyone who wants the bag they can actually purchase new, with a warranty of availability and the fuller specification, is the Soft Margaux. 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. Hunt down 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 at all, 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; 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 choose material, mindful that canvas and seasonal colours discount on resale
4. Only after that should an original on the secondary market come into it