Others re-think their washing habits due to concerns for the environment or rising electricity costs. (As for the denim bros, Szabo says most are driven by aesthetical concerns that are “accidentally sustainable”.) Mac Bishop, founder of clothes company Wool & Prince, explains to Fast Company that he changed his focus on “convenience and minimalism”, which resonated well with male consumers – “particularly those who already disliked doing laundry” – when he started promoting his women’s brand, Wool&. Subjected to centuries of sexist laundry advertising, women would be less responsive to the idea of not washing their clothes, he theorised, and research backed him up, showing that, with women, environmentalism was a more effective reason to give.
Today, the Wool& brand sells merino wool dresses with the help of a “challenge” where customers wear the same dress every day for 100 days. A common takeaway from challenge-takers is “the decreased laundry that comes along with wearing merino daily”, according to Rebecca Eby from Wool&.
One of Wool&’s customers is Chelsea Harry from Connecticut, US. “I grew up in a house where you wash everything after one use,” she tells BBC Culture. “Towel after one use, your pyjamas after one use.” One summer, Harry lived with her grandmother, who taught her to put her pyjamas under her pillow in the morning and wear them again the next night. Later, she met her husband, who, she says, “hardly ever washes any clothes”. Then, during the pandemic, Harry started hiking. This is when things really changed. “Obviously you can’t shower after you’ve been hiking all day and you’re sleeping in a hammock or tent,” she says. Others in the hiking community recommended Ex Officio wool underwear, which can be worn over subsequent days or washed and dried quickly. Using this and other wool clothing, Harry discovered she could hike and backpack for days and still feel comfortable. “Then,” she says, “I started to think: Why don’t I do this in my everyday life?” And that was that.
Scents and sensibility
Harry is not worried about smell. “I trust my nose,” she says. Wearing a new dress with a different wool blend, she can smell herself – something that never happens in her other dresses, she explains, even when she travels to tropical locations like the Middle East in summer. Like Szabo, she employs tricks to avoid a full wash: Airing the garment overnight, or spraying vinegar or vodka in the armpits. “I absolutely love just, at the end of the day, hanging out my wool dress, my wool leggings, my wool socks,” she says. “That’s what I do. I hang them up by the window, I take a shower, I have my Ex Officio underwear, and in the morning, I just put it all back on.”
