When it comes to stitching together complex garments, dexterous human hands are still far superior to rigid robot arms.

Much of the garment production process is already automated, from picking cotton to spinning yarn to cutting clothes. Some specialist machines can even sew buttons or pockets. However, no commercial robot had been able to piece together all the different materials to create an entire item of clothing, like a pair of jeans or a t-shirt.

But last month, Jonathan Zornow, founder and sole employee of Seattle-based startup Sewbo, claimed a breakthrough: He says he overcame a common hurdle to clothing automation—the challenge of working with weak, flexible fabrics—and successfully used an industrial robot to sew together a t-shirt.