Curated Luxury Knit The Row Ascot Bag

The Row Margaux, Soft vs Original: The Specifications Compared

Put the difference between the Margaux and the Soft Margaux to five people and five confident, contradictory answers come back. 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, running measurements, materials, closures, linings and observed prices against each other line by line. The material here is built 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. If a figure is not reliably documented, that is noted here instead of guessed at, 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 long version is below.

Two Bags Sharing a Name Through a Complicated 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 arrived as a related but separately specified bag, carrying its own construction details and its own product pages. In 2025 the original vanished from third-party retailers, and the brand’s own webstore now fronts the Soft Margaux and the Margaux Shoulder instead of the original. Reports of its discontinuation are widespread, but no official confirmation has ever come from the brand, and that difference tells rather than being pedantry when you are setting a price on the secondary market. In practice, the Soft Margaux is the one you can buy new and the original is now a resale proposition. Comparing the two therefore means setting a current product against an archive one, which alters 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 examined one by one. There the row fashion fashion 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 keep the base off the ground. The open-top shape gets a way to shut thanks to an interior toggle closure. Belted side gussets make the profile adjustable, cinched or released. 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 and Linings

Stated as 100 percent calfskin in a matte grained finish, the Soft Margaux 10 and 12 are both lined in cotton herringbone. That lining choice tells you a great deal 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 further and lines the bag in 100 percent lambskin, which is softer, more easily marked and considerably more expensive to work with. The wider family covers 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 as well. Suede and canvas versions seem different in the hand and, more importantly, behave differently on resale.

The Hardware, the Buckles and the Handles

On the Soft Margaux the hardware is palladium-plated, matte rather than polished in finish, in line 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. The buckles are functional, not decorative, because they are what allows the belted gussets to change the width of the bag. The Soft Margaux 10 and 12 share a 5-inch handle drop, which is a hand-carry or crook-of-the-elbow figure and not a shoulder one, so both come with a removable shoulder strap to close the gap. 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. 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 name’s number gives nothing more than the bag’s width in inches, and that makes the family easier to navigate than most. The Soft Margaux 10 arrives 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 the 12 in its name it is the widest and shallowest of the three, since the number refers to the bag’s stated size rather than its maximum external span. A Soft Margaux 15 is out there as well, and a leather-and-canvas Margaux 17 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

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 set the whole family in the collection’s top band, next to 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. The softer secondary numbers say the same thing — frequent Margaux sales reported 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. New Margaux bags are placed in the $5,000 to $9,000 range by a major resale authenticator, which makes a useful sanity check: 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. Pick the 10 for light carrying and the shape at its most sculptural; pick the 12 for a working bag, as the second card slot and the zip pocket only arrive at that size. The Margaux Shoulder 12 is the pick if your carry is under the arm rather than in the hand, because tubular handles and narrowed gussets are built for exactly that. Only pursue the original on resale if the archive version is specifically what you want and you are comfortable going 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. Buy black or neutral calfskin if resale matters to you; buy whatever colour you like if it does not.

1. Start with hand-carry or shoulder, because that separates Soft from Shoulder straight away
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. Consider an original on the secondary market only at that point