Looking After The Row Leather, Suede and Raffia Bags

The first thing you register about one of these bags is everything it leaves out. No logo plaque, no coated canvas, no heavy hardware taking the knocks. Instead you have a great deal of exposed surface: calfskin with the grain on show, lambskin linings, suede that takes a mark from a glance, and in summer a raffia weave left entirely unsealed. Almost all of the care burden of The Row bags belongs to the material itself. Simple to look after, unforgiving when you get it wrong.

This guide is organised by material, because that is where the real decisions sit. A grained calfskin tote and a suede top handle from the same season need opposite treatment, and a sisal bag needs something different again.

The caveat that has to come first

The Row issues no public care protocol for its bags. No manual exists, no cleaning chart is published, and no brand-approved product line is sold alongside them. Treat all of it as material-appropriate general guidance, built on how calfskin, lambskin, suede, canvas and raffia behave, not on instructions issued by the label. Handle it as a good leather specialist would: cautious, conservative and biased toward doing less. If someone hands you a definitive brand-issued cleaning routine for these bags, they are filling a gap rather than citing a source. Where the piece matters to you, ask a professional before you apply anything at all.

Why habits outrank products

The bulk of the damage to a good bag comes from routine handling, and the fixes are all behavioural. Nothing distorts a soft silhouette faster than overfilling, and owners make it most often with the Margaux and the Park Tote. The belted side gussets on the Soft Margaux exist so you can adjust the shape, not for cramming more in. Leather is dried and faded by sun, with radiators saint laurent tote and car dashboards accelerating both. People underrate what rain does to unfinished surfaces, and suede and raffia are close to defenceless. No product on a shelf covers as much ground as simply keeping a bag away from sun, heat and water.

• Nothing stays in a stored bag, least of all receipts or anything that can transfer colour.
• Leave a soft bag hanging by its handles and the drop stretches, so keep it off the hook.
• A pouch keeps pens, keys and cosmetics off the lining.
• Wash your hands before you handle pale calfskin or untreated suede.

Smooth, grained, saddle and polished calfskin

The backbone of the line, calfskin, is also the most forgiving material in it. Smooth calfskin reveals scuffs and shine, matte grained calfskin hides them well, and polished saddle leather lands somewhere in between. Routine care means buffing with a soft dry cloth after use, going with the grain and concentrating on the corners and base, where dirt gathers. Sparingly and infrequently are the operative words for a neutral conditioner, tested first on a hidden panel. An over-conditioned hide darkens unevenly, turns tacky and loses the structure you want to keep. Because pale calfskin picks up dye from dark denim, keep light bags away from indigo and never scrub a transferred mark, since scrubbing spreads it.

Nappa and lambskin: linings more than exteriors

Because they appear more often as linings than exteriors, protecting them works differently. Lambskin lines the Margaux Shoulder; the Bourse Clutch has a calfskin exterior and a nappa lining — so the softest material in the bag is the one your keys sit against. Both are exceptionally soft, both mark easily, and neither responds to being worked on. The correct answer is a dry soft cloth, nothing more, used lightly and rarely. Leave conditioner out of it completely, because these hides are already supple and over-treatment leaves a greasy sheen that will not come out. Protection here means a pouch, not a product.

Suede, the most demanding material in the line

Suede is consistently the more expensive choice here, and it demands a matching increase in care. The observed 2026 market prices make the gap plain: India 10.00 runs $3,850 in leather and $5,370 in suede, and Agnes 15 runs $5,000 in leather against $5,800 in suede. The nap is what you are paying for, and it flattens, absorbs and stains more readily than any finished hide. Suede care is mechanical rather than chemical, which is precisely what most owners fail to grasp. Most routine wear is handled by a dedicated suede brush alone, used gently in one direction to lift the nap and clear surface dust. Anything wetter than that is a job for a professional.

1. Brush lightly after each wear, working with the nap rather than scrubbing across it.
2. Natural drying at room temperature, no radiators or hairdryers, then a brush once it is fully dry.
3. A suede eraser lifts dry marks, used with as little pressure as possible.
4. Leave anything oily, coloured or set alone — it belongs with a leather specialist.

What should never touch suede makes a short, absolute list: no leather cream, no conditioner, no wet wipes, no soap and no water-based cleaner. What you get is a matted nap, or a ring that shows in every light. The realistic standard is prevention, not repair, because regular brushing does more over a year than any treatment.

Raffia and sisal, canvas and nylon, silk and satin

Know before you buy: these are the least serviceable materials the brand works with. Because the sisal family and the woven raffia and linen totes are not tanned surfaces, conditioning is meaningless and a stained panel cannot be refinished. Solvents and hard scrubbing distort the weave of canvas and nylon and leave a clean patch that reads as damage, even though both wear well otherwise. Silk and satin pieces, including the small evening bags and knotted crossbody shapes, mark permanently with water and skin oils. A barely damp cloth, a spot-clean and a quick blot — that is the only home treatment worth trying on any of them. Prevention does all the work here, so keep them out of the rain and away from sunscreen.

Hardware and linings, the overlooked parts

Hardware here is palladium-plated, matte or brushed, and it is that finish you need to protect. Metal polish exists to create shine, and it will burnish a deliberately soft surface into something that no longer matches the bag. Wipe buckles and feet with a dry cloth, and dry them off if they get wet, so moisture does not sit in the join. The engraving on the Margaux buckles and base feet holds dust, and a soft brush clears it better than a cloth. The cotton herringbone linings in the Soft Margaux 10 and 12 should be vacuumed out, never washed. Because early attention turns a large repair into a small one, check the stitching at the handle roots occasionally.

How to store them between wears

Most quiet deterioration happens in storage, and the fix is cheap. Store it in its own dust bag, lightly stuffed so the shape holds without stretching the sides. Use acid-free tissue, or a soft cotton scarf; newspaper does not, since the ink transfers. Because these silhouettes hold their shape when empty and lose it under weight, store bags upright on a shelf rather than stacked under others. A dark, dry, ventilated space is the aim, with no sealed plastic boxes to trap humidity against leather. Rotating what you carry counts for more than owners expect, because a resting bag recovers its form.

The point at which it goes to a specialist

Good row handbags get ruined when the line between maintenance and restoration is crossed at home, and the line itself is clear enough. A leather specialist should take anything involving colour loss, ink, oil, water rings on suede or a stretched handle. Structural work is the same, from loose stitching at a stress point to a lining torn away from its seam. Because coated-canvas technique does not carry across, find out whether the specialist has handled unlogoed luxury calfskin. Expect discreet testing, and honesty about any mark that cannot be lifted cleanly, because some marks on untreated hide never will be. A botched attempt at home leaves a resale discount larger than the cost of one competent intervention.