Jeans Wear Are Not Meant To Be Washed - Levi Strauss CEO

Chip Bergh

On Tuesday, the CEO of American denim pioneer Levi Strauss publicly admitted that the jeans he was wearing while speaking at Fortune’s ‘Brainstorm Green’ conference hadn’t been washed since he purchased them over a year ago. And people are so freaking out.

 Chip Bergh had told the audience:

“These are one of my favorite jeans—[they] are maybe a year old, and they have yet to see a washing machine. I know that sounds totally disgusting… but believe me, it can be
done! You can spot clean it, you can air dry it, and it's fine. I have yet to get a skin disease or anything else. It works."

When moderator, Andy Sewer, who obviously seemed a bit taken aback, asked Bergh the age-old question: how often should one be washing their jeans then?
Bergh answered:

 “Not very often. If you talk to real denim aficionados, they’ll tell you, don’t wash your blue jeans.”

Washing denim has always been a complicated and hotly debated issue—how often it should be done, what tools should be utilized, whether or not it collects bacteria, etc.