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

Ask five people to describe the difference between the Margaux and the Soft Margaux and you will collect 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. 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 is drawn 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 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 full version is below.

Two Bags, One Name, One Complicated Year

The original Margaux is the flagship on which the brand built its handbag reputation, an unlined-looking tote that derives its structure from leather thickness and panel shaping rather than stiffeners. The Soft Margaux arrived as a related but separately specified bag, with its own construction details and its own product pages. During 2025 the original was removed from third-party retailers, and the brand’s own webstore now leads with the Soft Margaux and the Margaux Shoulder rather than the original. Its discontinuation has been widely reported, though the brand has never officially ysl icare tote confirmed it, and that distinction is not pedantry when you are settling what to pay on the secondary market. In practice this means the Soft Margaux is the version on sale new, while the original has become a resale proposition. Anyone comparing the two is therefore comparing a current product against an archive one, which changes how the specification differences should be weighed.

The Specifications, Side by Side

The clearest way to see the difference is to isolate the features the Soft version adds and work through 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 looks from across a street. Protective metal feet hold the base away from the ground. The open-top shape acquires a way to shut thanks to an interior toggle closure. Belted side gussets allow the profile to be drawn in or let out. A zip pocket and card slots turn a deep cavity into something organised. The table sets these out with the observed 2026 figures for the versions sold new.

Materials, Outside and In

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 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. Made in Italy is stated on the brand’s own product pages for the Soft Margaux 10 and 12 and for the Margaux Shoulder 12. In the hand, suede and canvas versions read differently, and on resale they behave differently too.

Hardware, Buckles and Handles

On the Soft Margaux the hardware is palladium-plated, matte rather than polished in finish, consistent with the rest of the collection. The signature element on any Margaux is its pair of adjustable side buckles, and on genuine examples the 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. 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 discards that arrangement for elongated tubular handles and narrowed gusseted side panels, designed from the outset to sit under the arm. Where the requirement is one The Row bag that goes hands-free without a strap, the Shoulder is the answer, not the Soft.

What the Size Numbers Actually Tell You

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 measures 10 x 7 x 7.5 inches, which is a genuinely compact bag with an unusual amount of depth for its 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. A Soft Margaux 15 is in circulation, while a Margaux 17 in a leather-and-canvas execution has been carried by Selfridges. No verifiable retail price exists for either, so read any figure quoted for them as an asking price and not a documented one.

What Each Costs, and What Resale Is Doing

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, beside 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 lifted the label into the report’s unicorn tier for the first time. Softer 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. None of this is investment advice, and it is worth remembering that canvas, nylon and seasonal-colour versions discount rather than appreciate.

Which Version to Choose

Want the bag you can actually 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. Go after the original on resale only when you specifically want the archive version and are prepared to buy 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 genuinely want.

1. Decide hand-carry or shoulder first, because that splits Soft from Shoulder immediately
2. Then decide size, with the 10 for occasion carry and the 12 for daily use
3. Then material, remembering that canvas and seasonal colours discount on resale
4. And only then consider an original on the secondary market