no-wash movement

The no-wash movement is hardline about not washing clothes, both for the sake of the fabric and for environmental reasons.  Alongside them are the low-wash people who agree that we are obsessive about washing our clothes and that the environment would benefit if we stopped doing this, but they also feel that our clothes can reach a point where throwing them in the washing machine is the correct thing to do.

In particular, wool and denim are singled out as fabrics that are damaged by too much washing.  There is, apparently, a competition where you can enter your jeans to be judged for the quality of their fading.  If you wash your jeans the fabric softens and the sharp contrasts blur so any serious competitor is a no-wash person.  The advocates of wool clothing stress that too much washing is bad for the wool and quite unnecessary.  Hanging it out to air is sufficient. A spray of vodka in the underarm does wonders.  And then there are the environmental concerns.  Whichever way you look at it, the days of wearing clothes once and then flinging them into the washing machine may be over.