Today’s fashion industry remains marred by precarious or unethical working conditions and detrimental amounts of CO2 emissions. For years, fringe technologists have sought to automate the sewing process, which would allow producers to nearshore production, thereby addressing malpractice and cutting down the length of the supply chain. In 2022, an Austrian fashion robotics start-up was founded to “counteract [those] enormous problems that this industry shoulders” through the automation of the sewing process, says Michael Mayr, founder at the company.

Named Silana, the start-up was born from the collective ideas of Mayr alongside Anton Wohlgemuth and Michael Hofmannrichter. Wohlgemuth, touted as the “genius behind Silana”, designed and developed a robot for automatically cutting clay at 17, and later studied automation engineering at university; Hoffmanrichter, with a background in investment management, also brings experience in logistics and automotive sectors; while Mayr, well-connected to the industry through several years’ experience in fashion, has an academic background in textile engineering.

The Silana project began when the trio collectively decided to challenge the industry’s reliance on cheap manual labour, and in 2024 a pre-seed funding round – led by SOSV, joined by investors including HAX, OÖ HightechFonds and Material V – garnered €1.5m (US$1.61m) to support the development of the “first sewing robot worldwide”. But the automation of sewing presents its difficulties: how will the start-up overcome these hurdles, and what impact would such technologies have on the textile & apparel labour landscape?