Jeans - Care and Wear

Care and Wear

Despite most jeans being “pre-shrunk”, they are still sensitive to slightly further shrinking and loss of coloring from being washed. The Levi Strauss company recommends avoiding washing jeans as much as possible. Carl Chiara, Levi Strauss director of brand and special projects, has a credo: The less you wash your jeans, the better your jeans become. These and other suggestions to avoid washing jeans where possible have encountered criticism. Cory Warren, editor of LS&Co. Unzipped, clarifies in a response to such a criticism:

Our advice is to wash less often, but clearly, you have to judge for yourself what’s appropriate. Hot day, dirty job? Wash your jeans. Please! Cold day, office job? Maybe you can wear them twice or more before they go back to the washing machine. Personally, if I wear a pair of jeans to work on Friday — cool climate, office job — I tend to wear them on Saturday. And if Saturday is spent indoors and I’m not spilling food all over myself, I might even wear them on Sunday.

—Corey Warren,