The big story to come out of Marc Jacobs’ spring collection was color—ripe shades of melon, citrine, pumpkin, aubergine, tobacco, wheat…you get the idea. (Interestingly, with all that color, the stand-out piece was a strapless, beaded black evening jumpsuit.)

Yet despite Jacobs’ masterful use of color and his laudably diverse model casting, this was a hard collection to love. It was too referential, too old-fashioned, and borderline boring—perhaps a recreation of the decade he wished he’d been old enough to experience firsthand. But do we need to see 70s-era Sonia Rykiel, Missoni, YSL, or worse, Butterick Patterns, on a New York runway? You could almost imagine young Marc’s sketchbook reinterpreted for the runway. What was new here? As beautiful as it was, despite all those rainbow hues, lavish curls and those wonderfully wide-brimmed hats, Marc’s girls looked antique.