At this year’s Private Policy show during New York Fashion Week, the audience was given more than just a glimpse of the upcoming Spring/Summer 2026 silhouettes. The brand presented a challenge wrapped in a deceptively simple inquiry: can humanity and technology form an authentic emotional bond?
In the front row, next to familiar cultural figures like Kodak Black, appeared an entirely different kind of guest BAOBAO, the world’s first Dual-Form Home Intelligent Agent. Capable of transforming in real time from humanoid to quadruped, BAOBAO was far from a futuristic gimmick. Its presence symbolized the increasingly fragile boundary between human experience and artificial intelligence, forcing the audience to consider what it really means to connect.
The season’s collection carried the title Can We Be Friends?, and Private Policy made it clear this was not a rhetorical flourish but the heart of the presentation. Rather than providing answers, the brand encouraged reflection. If intelligence can be programmed to understand us, is it still just machinery? If we can extend the concept of friendship to entities we once dismissed as artificial, doesn’t that stretch the very definition of being human?
Philosophical undercurrents aside, the runway opened with familiar codes of Americana, reshaped for a futuristic landscape. Denim, workwear, and preppy classics were reborn through elastic quilting, reimagined polo shirts, translucent outerwear, and tailored jackets. Protective textures gave way to sculptural cuts, resulting in a vision that Private Policy aptly calls “the Americana of tomorrow.”
The runway itself resisted convention, with models moving along uneven paths through a sprawling showroom. Midway through, BAOBAO entered. With motion and dexterity surpassing human limitations, the intelligent agent became the show’s most provocative moment. Its presence sparked questions lingering over the collection: can a machine communicate emotion, or even offer companionship?
Private Policy has long used fashion as a stage for cultural dialogue, and this season reaffirmed that mission. Beyond fabric and form, the Spring/Summer 2026 collection unfolded as an invitation to contemplate the relationship between people and the technologies we create. Perhaps the answer to Can We Be Friends? will remain elusive. But the brand’s work makes one thing clear fashion is not just a mirror of society, it is also a medium through which we can explore the possibilities of our future selves.
Photos courtesy of Private Policy
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