Let’s hope he washes his underwear.
Levi Strauss CEO Chip Bergh shocked the crowd at an environmental conference Tuesday when he revealed that he hadn’t washed his jeans for a year.
“These are one of my favorite jeans, maybe a year old, and they have yet to see a washing machine,” the denim king told Fortune’s “Brainstorm Green” conference in California.
“I know that sounds totally disgusting, but believe me, it can be done. I have yet to get a skin disease or anything else”
Bergh said washing jeans regularly uses too much water, and that “real denim aficionados” know not to wash their jeans at all.
The comments came as Bergh discussed his 141-year-old company’s sustainability efforts, which include working with farmers to create cotton that needs less processing before being made into clothing.
While some audience members seemed shocked, the idea of wearing unwashed denim is not new.
“They have these jeans you don’t have to wash now — or so they say,” Anderson Cooper said on his show in December 2012. Cooper said a salesperson told him, “Don’t wash them for a long time.”