Call it the case of the missing dresses. Marc Jacobs’ entire Spring/ Summer 2012 collection has been stolen from a train en route from Paris to London for the brand’s European press day, the company has announced.

According to the e-mail circulated to press on Wednesday morning, the PR team wrote” our press day tomorrow in the Marc Jacobs store is cancelled, due to the theft of the spring/ summer 2012 collections during its transfer from Paris.” There’s no word yet on who could have stolen the collection—though counterfeiters could be a possibility—and there was no the mention of the baffling logistics of lifting an entire collection from a train car. Now, British editors won’t have a chance to see the samples from the runway up close—which could result in fewer editorial placements for the brand in European publications.

The 46-look collection consisted of drop-waist skirts, cellophane cocktail dresses, and translucent and tinsel fabrics. “I just wanted the feel of a Southern dance hall,” Jacobs said of his show in September.

Newsweek/The Daily Beast’s Robin Givhan described the collection when it debuted during New York Fashion Week as a “surprising presentation, not because one couldn’t imagine a designer finding inspiration in the world of retro musicals, but because the references were oblique and subtle in a season when they have mostly been obvious and heavy-handed... It was a refreshing collection because it went its own way; the designer was unwilling to fall under the spell of fuchsia, cobalt blue, and bright orange. This was a personal passion.”

Even before Wednesday’s train theft, Jacobs had been subject of the rumor mill, as many  speculated in August that Jacobs would be hired to replace John Galliano, who was fired from Dior last year after a slew of anti-Semitic remarks. But according to Women’s Wear Daily earlier this week), Jacobs is no longer a frontrunner for the job.

Marc Jacobs’s PR team did not respond immediately to two phone calls and an e-mail for comment.