Paris Fashion Week is no stranger to a gimmick. There was Coperni spraying a dress onto a model in 2022, followed by Schiaparelli’s faux animal heads a year later, and then Robert Wun’s blood-splattered “ horror couture ” last year.

This week’s event in the City of Light hewed to form as Chinese humanoid robot N2, created by Beijing-based Noetix Robotics, strutted awkwardly down a catwalk attired in waistcoat and pearls in the first outing of its kind outside of China.

“Humanoid robots look like human beings,” Noetix CEO Jiang Zheyuan tells TIME. “So maybe new sparks could be created through collaborating with the fashion world.”

Unfortunately, N2’s turn came after the close of the official Paris Fashion Week as a planned collaboration with a Chinese designer fell apart at the 11t

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