YSL Loulou Crossbody Saint Laurent Icons

30 wrz YSL Loulou Crossbody Saint Laurent Icons

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

Ask five people what the difference is between the Margaux and the Soft Margaux and you will get five confident and 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, ranged 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 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 Carrying a Name Through 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 in place of stiffeners. The Soft Margaux appeared as a related yet separately specified bag, with construction details and product pages of its own. During 2025 the original was withdrawn from third-party retailers, and the brand’s own webstore now lists the ysl handbags Soft Margaux and the Margaux Shoulder rather than the original.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 shifts how much weight the specification differences deserve.

Side by Side on the Spec Sheet

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 of them, 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. An interior toggle closure gives the open-top shape a way to shut. 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. These are set out in the table with the observed 2026 figures for the versions sold new.

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. A good deal about the brand’s priorities sits in that lining, because cotton herringbone inside is a textile decision rather than a branding one, holding 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. 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 stated for the Soft Margaux 10 and 12 and for the Margaux Shoulder 12. Suede and canvas versions feel different in the hand and, more importantly, behave differently on resale.

Buckles, Fittings and Handles

The Soft Margaux uses palladium-plated hardware, finished matte rather than polished, consistent with the rest of the collection. What marks 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 rather than decorative, since they are what let the belted gussets change 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. Where the requirement is one The Row bag that goes hands-free without a strap, the Shoulder is the answer, not 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 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. 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.

What They Cost and How Resale Behaves

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. 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 point the same way, 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. A major resale authenticator puts new Margaux bags in the $5,000 to $9,000 range, a useful sanity check, since 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 One 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. Opt for the Margaux Shoulder 12 when the arm rather than the hand is how you carry, as its tubular handles and narrowed gussets exist for that purpose. 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 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, and 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