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

Ask five different people how the Margaux and the Soft Margaux differ and you will hear five confident, mutually exclusive 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. This is a specification-led comparison, not an impression-led one, setting measurements, materials, closures, linings and observed prices against each other line by line. Everything here is sourced from what the brand states on its product pages and from prices observed in the market in 2026, which are observations and not an official price list. Where a figure is not reliably documented, this article says so in place of guessing, 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 full version is below.

One Name, Two Bags, and a Complicated Year

The brand built its handbag reputation on the original Margaux, an unlined-looking tote whose structure comes from leather thickness and panel shaping instead of stiffeners. Related but specified separately, the Soft saint laurent shoulder bag 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 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 clearest way to see the difference is to isolate the features the Soft version adds and check them one at a time. There are five in total, and together they change how the bag behaves in daily use rather than how it reads from across a street. Protective metal feet raise the base away from the ground. The open-top shape acquires a way to shut thanks to an interior toggle closure. Belted side gussets let the profile be cinched or released. A deep cavity becomes something organised once a zip pocket and card slots are added. These are set out in the table with the observed 2026 figures for the versions sold new.

The Materials and What Lines Them

The Soft Margaux 10 and 12 are both given as 100 percent calfskin in a matte grained finish, and both are lined in cotton herringbone. 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. 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. The wider family encompasses 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. On the brand’s own product pages, Made in Italy is given 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

Hardware on the Soft Margaux is palladium-plated and finished matte rather than polished, consistent with the rest of the collection. What identifies 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. Those buckles do real work rather than decoration: they are what lets the belted gussets alter the width of the bag. 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. 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 Actually Mean

The number in the name is just the width of the bag in inches, which makes this family easier to follow than most. At 10 x 7 x 7.5 inches, the Soft Margaux 10 is genuinely compact yet unusually deep for its footprint. The Soft Margaux 12 measures 12 x 9 x 7.5 inches, keeping 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 denotes the bag’s stated size rather than its maximum external span. A Soft Margaux 15 exists as well, and a leather-and-canvas Margaux 17 has been carried by Selfridges. Neither of those two has a retail price that can be verified, so treat any figure quoted for them as an asking price rather than 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. The family therefore sits in the collection’s top band, alongside the India and Agnes top handles and the Marlo totes. Resale tells an unusual story, with the Rebag CLAIR 2025 report placing the Margaux Tote at 107 percent value retention as part of a brand-level 97 percent that put 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

Want the bag you can really 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. 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. 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. Where resale matters, black or neutral calfskin is the buy, and where it does not, buy the colour you really want.

1. Decide hand-carry or shoulder first, because that splits Soft from Shoulder immediately
2. Size comes next: 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. Consider an original on the secondary market only at that point