At the weekend, The Guardian published an interview with fashion's sustainable queen, Stella McCartney. It was intended to promote her latest collection All Together Now, based on the film Yellow Submarine, which in turn is based on the music of The Beatles. The interview has since enjoyed a lot of attention, largely due to McCartney's thoughts on how often we should all be washing our clothes.
"Basically, in life, rule of thumb: if you don’t absolutely have to clean anything, don’t clean it," says McCartney. "I wouldn’t change my bra every day and I don’t just chuck stuff into a washing machine because it’s been worn. I am incredibly hygienic myself, but I’m not a fan of dry cleaning or any cleaning, really.”
Since this information entered the public sphere, many articles have emerged discussing McCartney's opinion, examining the reality of not washing your clothes and what it actually means for the planet. The general consensus is, of course, that the less you wash anything, the better that is for the environment, particularly if we're talking about dry cleaning. As Laura Diáz Sánchez, from the Plastic Soup Foundation advocacy group told BBC News: "Every time we wash our clothes an average of nine million [plastic] microfibres are released into the environment. The way we wash our clothes affects this, as well as the way our clothes are made - but the more we wash our clothes, the more microfibres are released."
Quite frankly, I'm bemused as to the outcry. I have long been an advocate for less frequent washing. Everyone knows that washed jeans are the very devil – mine are certainly at their peak after a few wears. And honestly, who has the time (or the sufficient amount of fabric softener) to wash their bra every single day? If, by happy accident, my own laziness means I am inadvertently helping the planet, then I'm thrilled. I'd also like to thank Stella McCartney for endorsing my dislike of household chores.