[munificent]

> All this stupid stretchy synthetic fabric wears out differently than natural fibers and then jeans start to fall apart.

For what it's worth, I wear mostly pretty cheap American Eagle jeans with stretch and they have lasted years on me. And that's despite basically wearing only four pairs of them in heavy rotation.

A big part of it is that I don't wash them every time I wear them. If I don't do anything to get them actively dirty or sweaty, I'll wear them a few times before they go in the wash. My understanding is that washing machines are, by a very large margin, the largest source of wear in clothing.

[ksherlock]

Serious denim folks stick them in a freezer to get rid of odor and if washing is absolutely necessary, hand-wash in the bath tub.

[hilbert42]

"washing machines are, by a very large margin, the largest source of wear in clothing"

...And the sodium percarbonate used as a stain remover in washing powders rots the fabric and also attacks the metal in zippers.

[dekhn]

It me quite some time to recognize just how much wear washing machines were causing to my artisinal collection of nerd shirts. It pokes holes in them!