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The Sweethome has a pretty detailed review on hangers today:
http://thesweethome.com/reviews/best-hangers/
The best hanger you can buy is The Container Store’s Basic Natural Wood Hangers. They’re available in three styles that will cover almost every piece of clothing you own. Each one is wide and thick enough to be durable and versatile, and the build prevents unsightly creases and tears. At $1.25 a piece, they’re not too expensive to stock your whole closet.
But we’re aware that not all closets have the same needs, which is why we recommend the Hanger Project’s garment-specific, high-end hangers for use with expensive clothes, The Container Store’s Superior Natural Wood Hangers for heavy coats and jackets, and the Whitmor Skirt/Slack Hanger for skirts.
How we picked
There’s an overwhelming amount of hangers out there, ranging from dollar-store varieties to those from high-end specialty hanger shops like the Hanger Project and Butler Luxury. Whitmor and Honey Can Do make a wide selection of hangers of every ilk, and The Container Store and Bed Bath & Beyond offer up anything you can ask for. Beyond that, there are dozens of smaller manufacturers of widely varying quality.
Most of the editorial reviews and comparisons we found only identified only the best (or a good enough) hanger for a certain type of clothing: for dresses, for blouses, et cetera. There isn’t a lot out there that attempts to determine the best hanger overall, and that forced us to rely heavily on our own testing and background research. We referenced a number of buyers guides from Oprah, Real Simple, and the Huffington Post. We also talked to a number of experts on the subject, including Kirby Allison, founder of the Hanger Project, and Robert Antón Patterson, owner of Revolver clothing boutiques in San Francisco.
With all this in mind, we developed a set of criteria for what a hanger should be. It should be versatile and have a natural shoulder shape that is supportive of the garment’s structure without stretching, tearing, or creasing it. It should be durable and strong, the clothes shouldn’t slip off, and there should be no sharp edges or splinters that could snag clothes. Plus, it should fit over standard 1” – 1.5” hanger bars, with a twistable hook that allows a hanger to face whichever way you desire.
We also had to determine how much one should pay for a simple hanger. While it’s tempting to rely on the wire hangers from the dry cleaners (or cheap plastic hangers from the dollar store) and be done with it, this can end up costing you in the long run. Kirby Allison explained that even if your wardrobe is purchased from cheap brands or made from inexpensive fabrics like polyester, the basic level of support a quality hanger provides will make them last longer.
…unless you are looking to hang a suit, wedding dress, or other sensitive piece of clothing, most people don’t need to spend more than $3-$4…
But unless you are looking to hang a suit, wedding dress, or other sensitive piece of clothing, most people don’t need to spend more than $3-$4 on a single hanger, and that’s really on the higher end of the spectrum (though it makes sense to spend more for more expensive garments). So that eliminated fancy concept hangers like this dehumidifying one from Pingi. Packages of hangers can be found for less than $1/hanger, but for most people, between $1 and $2 is the sweet spot. For less, you’re getting cheap plastic or poor construction. Go too much higher than that and you’re spending for specialty hangers, designed specifically for the type of clothing you’re hanging.
With all that in mind, we set to work finding the most qualified testing candidates for an all-purpose pick as well as some garment-specific ones for common needs like skirts, suits, and coats. We drew our picks from the aforementioned guides as well as user reviews on sites like Amazon, The Container Store, and Bed Bath & Beyond. We combed these websites for popular hangers with good user reviews. Ultimately, we narrowed the list down to 25 hangers for various types of clothing that we tested in person over the course of three months.
We used each hanger as intended, evaluating how easy they were to get clothing on and off of and seeing if they’re flexible enough to hold different styles. We also tugged and pulled at their seams, trying to see if they’d break.
For hangers with a bar, we pulled at the bar to see if it would break or snap off of the hanger. Most did come off, but the best ones were easily popped back into place and took much more force to release. This means they are capable of holding much heavier pants and won’t break in half in your closet. Important.
Our pick for most closets
All-purpose hanger
Basic Natural Wood Hangers
The Container Store's offering comes in three styles to fit your various garment needs. Plus, it's durable and attractive.
$1.25 each ($42 for 36) on The Container Store
Our favorite hangers are The Container Store’s Basic Natural Wood Hangers. They support and fit a variety of clothes well. They’re simple, sturdy, and durable. And aesthetically, they’re attractive and will make your closet look good.
Unlike cheaper plastic models, these wooden hangers come in three styles to fit your various garments’ specific needs, which will help increase the service life of your clothes. You can get basic, barless shirt hangers; shirt hangers with bars, suitable for hanging pants; and blouse hangers with notches (for thin straps) and ribbed plastic to prevent shirts from sliding off. By picking and choosing which proportions fit for your clothing, you can customize the hangers to fit your closet. That way, for example, you aren’t hanging silk shirts on the stay-put plastic ribbing or wide-neck blouses and cardigans without.
The hangers are also wide and thick enough to prevent creases in the shoulders and arms without being so thick they overtake your closet. They’re 17.5 inches wide from end to end; individual shoulder widths will vary (mine is, for example, 16 inches) but generally, shoulders span ranges from about 15-20 inches, and you won’t want more than a 2-3 inch difference between your own shoulders and the hangers. With hangers too wide, your sleeves will have trouble falling naturally; too skinny, and you’ll have unnatural creases before the shoulder. Their half-inch thickness isn’t quite suit-hanger level, but it’s more than enough to keep unsightly creases from developing in the shoulders. This is not the case for thinner, cheaper hangers like the Slimline, from Closet Candy.
They’re incredibly durable. I pulled up and down at the seam—no breakage.
They’re incredibly durable. I pulled up and down at the seam—no breakage. The only fail point I found was the bar for pants, which took quite a bit of pressure (more than any normal pair of pants would use) to pop out of place. But even when it did break, it was easily popped back into place. They’ve been holding my thick ski pants securely for several months. Compare that to Honey-Can-Do’s wooden hangers, which, for several of our editors, broke quickly with heavier items of clothing.
They’re also a great deal. At about $1.25 per hanger, our pick is among the cheapest wooden options out there. And they get even cheaper if you buy in bulk (good to have as an option, but not good when you’re forced to buy at least 50 at a time, like you do with the Proman Kaskade). That, combined with their solid construction and durability, makes them a great pick for anybody with a normal closet of low- to mid-priced shirts, cardigans, pants, and dresses. Reviewers on The Container Store’s website agree, too, giving the hangers 4.9 stars over 13 reviews.
If our pick is sold out…
Also Great
$58 (for 50) * on Amazon
*This price has changed. Shop wisely.
An alternate pick
Proman Kascade Hanger
If our main all-purpose pick is sold out, the Proman will is your next best bet.
The Proman Kaskade hangers aren’t quite as sturdy as the Container Store’s offering (the pants bar snapped off easily, and was hard to put back in place), and they’re only available in bulk. But if for some reason our top pick is sold out and you need a hanger (or 50) right now, get these.
Besides the Container Store, these were the sturdiest, taking quite a bit of effort to break off the pants bar. And also like our pick, they’re an attractive, uniform blond wood, which goes a long way towards making your closet look more organized. They don’t have grippy spots for loose blouses, but they do have notches for tanks. That should cover most of your wardrobe.
The competition
The Whitmor Sure-Grip hanger was the best plastic hanger we tested—it even had a swivel neck, which we found to be a rarity in a plastic hanger—but Amazon and Walmart have had trouble keeping them in stock for reasonable prices.
Bed Bath and Beyond’s Heavyweight White Hangers are sturdy and durable, but without any sort of grip, any wide-necked, sleeveless, or spaghetti-strapped clothing you have will quickly fall off. They’re super cheap at $0.58 a hanger, but they just don’t work.
We found the anti-slip coating pulled fibers out of delicate fabrics…
We had high hopes for the MAWA super-sticky hangers and were pleased to find they are definitely super grippy. But their benefit is also their downfall; we found the anti-slip coating pulled fibers out of delicate fabrics and could also remove excessive fur from your cat. They might be good for artificial fabrics, but we wouldn’t trust them for your delicates.
The plastic All-In-One hangers at The Container Store promise a lot—the ability to hang shirts, blouses, dresses, pants, and tees all on one hanger. Unfortunately, their razor-thin edge will inevitably create unsightly shoulder creases.
The Slim Grips suffer from the same skinny problem as the All-In-Ones, in addition to being much less durable: they easily broke in half with just a slight tug. Plus the material used to create the grippy shoulders stuck together when two hangers were placed side-by-side.
Closet Candy’s Slimline hangers have a unique shape that’s supposed to help clothing stay up without the use of grippy material. In practice, our blouses still slid off. And the edge is too thin.
We tested two padded hangers: the Whitmor Satin Padded Hanger and The Container Store’s Natural Canvas Padded Hanger. Excepting material, both were very similar: generally useless for most closets. Ostensibly, their rounded, soft shapes prevent shoulder lines in delicate garments, but in practice they were difficult to use. For your expensive clothing, we recommend the Hanger Project instead.
Like the Proman Kaskades, these Wooden Wood Hangers are only available in bulk. I don’t think many people need 100 skirt hangers, and even if they did, I’d still steer them away. The clasps aren’t protected and are thus likely to scratch your clothing, and although they are adjustable, they make a terrible, nails-on-chalkboard squeaking sound when moved.
These Homebasix hangers are simple and sturdy, but considering they’re more expensive than our picks and have no grip for wide-necked clothing, they just aren’t the best pick.
The Organize-It-All Chrome hangers are sleek and sturdy, but have nothing to grip shirts and prevent slippage. Without that, you won’t be able to hang loose blouses and shirts.
Honey-Can-Do’s wooden hangers have broken on several of our editors, and Amazon reviewers complain of recent construction changes for the worst. Pass.
Closet Complete Ultra Thin Velvet Hangers are super popular, and the velvet will absolutely prevent your clothing from slipping. However, too many reviewers report velvet flecking off onto clothing, and in the end, they’re too thin and bound to leave sharp creases.
The Honey-Can-Do Crystal Suit Hangers are too expensive, at more than $2 per hanger.
Friction hangers are well-reviewed but pricey ($3/hanger) without being multipurpose enough to justify the price. Since the hanger doesn’t connect all the way around, it’s really only good for pants and light blouses.
Same thing with Organize.com’s Open Bar Hangers, plus they’re even more expensive.
Hangers.com has a lot of hangers in every appreciable variety, but they’re mostly just available in bulk, too pricey for what you get.
These Olka hangers are interesting, but an all-plastic hanger with no grip isn’t the best pick for most closets.
The Woodlore raw cedar hangers will certainly make your closet smell as fresh as a Vermont forest, but raw wood is prone to snagging. The Wall Street Journal agrees, calling it “unpleasantly rough.”
The Great American Hanger Co’s Unfinished Cedar is also dismissed in the WSJ article, and reviewers are equally negative, saying they’re “thin” with “limited use.”
The (big) step up
Also Great
For expensive garments
The Hanger Project's hangers are expensive but they cover a wide variety of clothing types and are very sturdy.
Various Prices on Hanger Project
For most people, there’s no need to get specialty hangers for each of your garments. But an ill-suited hanger can cause creases, warping, and irreversible damage in delicate fabrics. If you’re spending $200-plus on an item, investing an extra $20 in the hanger is a wise investment because that’s where it will spend most of its time. We recommend picking the hangers that suit specific garment styles and sizes from the Hanger Project. Their individual hangers begin at about $15 to $20, running up to around $25 for thicker suit hangers.
The Hanger Project offers several different profiles for both women’s and men’s clothing in several different widths and contours, customized for everything from delicate blouses to heavy jackets. Each hanger is available in different sizes, so if you are a particularly small or large person, your clothing will never be at risk at damage from a poorly-sized hanger.
On trouser bars and blouse hangers, the Hanger Project uses felt to grip clothing and keep it from sliding off onto your closet floor—a step up from the ribbed plastic used in The Container Store’s wooden hangers.
I wasn’t able to break any of them by pulling them, and the hanger bars stayed firmly attached…
I tested several hangers from the Hanger Project, and found all of them sturdy. I wasn’t able to break any of them by pulling them, and the hanger bars stayed firmly attached no matter how hard I tugged.
If your closet consists of mostly mid-priced clothing and synthetics, there’s no need to spend the money on products from the Hanger Project, which could easily stretch into the many hundreds of dollars if you have a lot of clothes. But we do think the expense is justified if you’re already spending money on your clothing.
For dinner jackets or nicer winter coats
Also Great
$10 each on The Container Store
For heavier winter coats
Superior Natural Wood Hangers
For winter coats made of waxed cotton or leather, you'll need something sturdy like these.
Jacket hangers, which are broad enough in the shoulders to support the weight of a heavier winter coat or sport jacket but don’t have a crossbar to hold pants, can be hard to find. If you’ve got a closet full of winter coats that you don’t worry too much about, or that are very light (down filled), then regular wooden hangers, like The Container Store’s set we recommend, will do just fine.
For a heavier winter coat, or things made of waxed cotton or leather which need support in the shoulders so they won’t stretch over time, we recommend the Container Store’s Superior Natural Wood Hangers for $10. They’re broad enough in the shoulders to provide adequate support and were among the cheapest we could find. (Only the Honey Can Do Wood Side Shoulder Suit hangers were cheaper, at $13 for two, but they were also much worse quality.)
If you want a really nice hanger for your dinner jackets, blazers, or really nice winter coats, our pick is The Hanger Project’s jacket hanger, which has all the wonderful qualities of their suit hangers without the crossbar. But since this hanger is $23, you might as well just buy the suit hangers with crossbars for $2 more.
Our pick for suits
Also Great
Suit hanger
Luxury Wooden Suit Hanger
For nice suits you'll need a special kind of hanger to keep them looking good. This is the best option.
$25 on Hanger Project
Your nice suits need a special kind of hanger—and not just your standard coat or jacket hanger, either. Wirecutter publisher Brian Lam tested six suit-specific hangers, culled from blogs and top picks on sites like Amazon, The Container Store, and Bed Bath and Beyond, finding his favorite to be the Hanger Project’s offering. At $25, these hangers are more expensive than most others. But suits, unlike other kinds of clothing, deserve better support and generally are costly enough to justify a nice hanger.
…suits, unlike other kinds of clothing, deserve better support…
Why this hanger? Because it’s strong enough, being made only of wood and metal hardware, to survive any twisting and bending I put it through, unlike most cheap hangers whose pants bar broke pretty much instantly. It has a generous felt roller bar that won’t leave creases or lines on your pants like some others we tried. It comes in different sizes, so it fits perfectly to your jacket and won’t stretch out or let shoulders sag. And both its shoulders and neck are contoured to fit your suit’s natural shape.
As a bonus, they’re also constructed by the legendary commercial hanger company Beverly Hangers, although these particular hangers are exclusive to and designed by The Hanger Project with the input and direction of suit makers.
Each one is about $24, but as long as you spent more than $400 on your suit, it’s worth the investment. You’re likely to keep these hangers longer than your suit—if not your whole life—since a basic, sturdy hanger won’t go out of style.
The (suit) runner up
Also Great
$28 on Butler Luxury
Alternate suit hanger
Deep Butterscotch Suit Hanger
If our favorite suit hanger is sold out, the Butler Luxury is a good second option.
In terms of quality, the hanger from Butler Luxury was very similar to the Hanger Project’s. It’s made of all wood and metal and also comes in various sizes, but the ends of the hanger arms and the neck area were too square. It’s not a huge deal, but these are definitely not form-fitting like the Hanger Project hanger. They’re also $3 more, so though they’re very good as a back up if The Hanger Project is out of stock, they’re not our first pick.
A budget pick for suits
Also Great
$12 each on The Container Store
Cheaper suit hanger
Superior Natural Wood Hangers with Ribbed Bar
If you don't want to spend a lot then these will do, though if you spent a lot on your suit, it's worth it to splurge on a hanger.
On a budget? We like the Container Store Superior Natural Wood Hangers with Ribbed Bar. They survived the torture test and cost only $12. Your suits deserve better, but if you’re really on a budget, these will be fine. They have generous shoulder support and are well-shaped, but unlike the Hanger Project picks, aren’t available in different sizes.
Suit hanger competition
Other suit hangers were either worse or more expensive than our budget pick.
I tried the popular Honey Can Do Wood Wide Shoulder suit hangers and I could break their pant bars or unseat the single nail used to hold them in place with 2 fingers. It was horrible. That’s why they’re only $13 for two. Avoid.
The Richards Homewares Euro Wood Rib Bar Suit Hangers were only slightly stronger. They’re unsized, generally unimpressively constructed, and cost $16 apiece. For that price, you might as well spend another $10 and get the Hanger Project hangers, which will last forever, or spend $4 less for our budget pick.
We also looked at the Real Suit Hanger with Wooden Pants Bar from Bed Bath and Beyond, which was extremely sturdy for a $13 dollar hanger. This one might have been our value pick, but the jagged pant hanger left dots and creases on our pants after a week of testing. Avoid this one.
What makes a good hanger?
A hanger enhances your closet and prolongs the life of your clothes—it shouldn’t be an afterthought. Good ones will be versatile in the types of shapes available and clothes they can handle. They’ll also have a supportive shape and a strong design made of sturdy materials.
When we say a hanger should be versatile, we don’t mean necessarily it needs to do and hold everything.
When we say a hanger should be versatile, we don’t mean necessarily it needs to do and hold everything. Look for a matching set of hangers with a few different variants. At the most basic, you need a hanger for shirts and pants, and you should also have a hanger with grippy material for loose blouses. You also should have a thick hanger for coats, and, if you own a suit, a specialized hanger for that.
We looked at a few hangers that did “everything,” designed to hold blouses, button-up shirts, pants, skirts, coats—everything. Attempting to accommodate so many clothing styles meant hangers poorly accommodated at least one—not to mention shaping a hanger in that many directions meant building it from flexible plastic, which is (as explained below) inferior to wood. You want your hangers to be slightly more specialized but to come with options for different styles of clothes so you can customize to your closet.
Kirby Allison, founder of the Hanger Project says a hanger should “mimic your body.” That means it needs to be about as wide as your shoulders and thick enough to let your clothing fall naturally. It also should taper off at the ends, not circle under, which can lead to a sharp dropoff and warping of the garment at the shoulders. With that in mind, we ultimately eliminated most plastic models, which tend to either have rounded edges, not be thick enough to provide adequate shape or support, or both.
Durability is, of course, a necessity, especially considering a hanger has so many fail points: Where the hook meets the body, where the bar (if it has one) is attached, where the separate sections are enjoined in the middle. There’s no reason a hanger shouldn’t last a long time.
The hanger’s hook should be wide enough to fit over most closet bars and be capable of twisting to face either way, so that you can ensure your clothes all face the same way in the closet no matter how you put them on the hanger. Luckily these are both pretty basic features in hangers, and we found very few without.
As for material, we ruled out all crystal-cut hangers, which tend to be cheap, easily breakable, and not terribly supportive. We also eliminated velvet hangers, which are often too thin (leading to sharp creases) and have many user complaints of velvet flecking off onto the clothing. Ultimately, we found wood the best hanger material: As Allison said, “If you’re paying for a hanger, you want a nice one.
Second, if you’re spending a lot of money on really fine clothing, you’re buying fine natural fibers. In order to honor that garment it needs to be hanging on a nice wood.” Sure, “honoring a garment” isn’t really a quantifiable descriptor, but we did find that overall, wooden hangers were shaped in a way that allowed garments to fall naturally. Robert Antón Patterson, owner of Revolver clothing boutiques in San Francisco, elaborated: “Wood is more eco-friendly and will last longer.” Unlike the plastic hangers we tested, it was quite difficult to break most of the wooden hangers we tested.
You should absolutely not settle for the wire hangers that you get from the dry cleaner. These are designed for transporting clothes only and can undesirably stretch garments if left hanging for too long. While they do have tons of other household uses, they bend and break easily, don’t hold up well over time, and are prone to rusting in more humid environments. So wire hangers were dispatched from the running before the race began.
http://thesweethome.com/reviews/best-hangers/
The best hanger you can buy is The Container Store’s Basic Natural Wood Hangers. They’re available in three styles that will cover almost every piece of clothing you own. Each one is wide and thick enough to be durable and versatile, and the build prevents unsightly creases and tears. At $1.25 a piece, they’re not too expensive to stock your whole closet.
But we’re aware that not all closets have the same needs, which is why we recommend the Hanger Project’s garment-specific, high-end hangers for use with expensive clothes, The Container Store’s Superior Natural Wood Hangers for heavy coats and jackets, and the Whitmor Skirt/Slack Hanger for skirts.
How we picked
There’s an overwhelming amount of hangers out there, ranging from dollar-store varieties to those from high-end specialty hanger shops like the Hanger Project and Butler Luxury. Whitmor and Honey Can Do make a wide selection of hangers of every ilk, and The Container Store and Bed Bath & Beyond offer up anything you can ask for. Beyond that, there are dozens of smaller manufacturers of widely varying quality.
Most of the editorial reviews and comparisons we found only identified only the best (or a good enough) hanger for a certain type of clothing: for dresses, for blouses, et cetera. There isn’t a lot out there that attempts to determine the best hanger overall, and that forced us to rely heavily on our own testing and background research. We referenced a number of buyers guides from Oprah, Real Simple, and the Huffington Post. We also talked to a number of experts on the subject, including Kirby Allison, founder of the Hanger Project, and Robert Antón Patterson, owner of Revolver clothing boutiques in San Francisco.
With all this in mind, we developed a set of criteria for what a hanger should be. It should be versatile and have a natural shoulder shape that is supportive of the garment’s structure without stretching, tearing, or creasing it. It should be durable and strong, the clothes shouldn’t slip off, and there should be no sharp edges or splinters that could snag clothes. Plus, it should fit over standard 1” – 1.5” hanger bars, with a twistable hook that allows a hanger to face whichever way you desire.
We also had to determine how much one should pay for a simple hanger. While it’s tempting to rely on the wire hangers from the dry cleaners (or cheap plastic hangers from the dollar store) and be done with it, this can end up costing you in the long run. Kirby Allison explained that even if your wardrobe is purchased from cheap brands or made from inexpensive fabrics like polyester, the basic level of support a quality hanger provides will make them last longer.
…unless you are looking to hang a suit, wedding dress, or other sensitive piece of clothing, most people don’t need to spend more than $3-$4…
But unless you are looking to hang a suit, wedding dress, or other sensitive piece of clothing, most people don’t need to spend more than $3-$4 on a single hanger, and that’s really on the higher end of the spectrum (though it makes sense to spend more for more expensive garments). So that eliminated fancy concept hangers like this dehumidifying one from Pingi. Packages of hangers can be found for less than $1/hanger, but for most people, between $1 and $2 is the sweet spot. For less, you’re getting cheap plastic or poor construction. Go too much higher than that and you’re spending for specialty hangers, designed specifically for the type of clothing you’re hanging.
With all that in mind, we set to work finding the most qualified testing candidates for an all-purpose pick as well as some garment-specific ones for common needs like skirts, suits, and coats. We drew our picks from the aforementioned guides as well as user reviews on sites like Amazon, The Container Store, and Bed Bath & Beyond. We combed these websites for popular hangers with good user reviews. Ultimately, we narrowed the list down to 25 hangers for various types of clothing that we tested in person over the course of three months.
We used each hanger as intended, evaluating how easy they were to get clothing on and off of and seeing if they’re flexible enough to hold different styles. We also tugged and pulled at their seams, trying to see if they’d break.
For hangers with a bar, we pulled at the bar to see if it would break or snap off of the hanger. Most did come off, but the best ones were easily popped back into place and took much more force to release. This means they are capable of holding much heavier pants and won’t break in half in your closet. Important.
Our pick for most closets
All-purpose hanger
Basic Natural Wood Hangers
The Container Store's offering comes in three styles to fit your various garment needs. Plus, it's durable and attractive.
$1.25 each ($42 for 36) on The Container Store
Our favorite hangers are The Container Store’s Basic Natural Wood Hangers. They support and fit a variety of clothes well. They’re simple, sturdy, and durable. And aesthetically, they’re attractive and will make your closet look good.
Unlike cheaper plastic models, these wooden hangers come in three styles to fit your various garments’ specific needs, which will help increase the service life of your clothes. You can get basic, barless shirt hangers; shirt hangers with bars, suitable for hanging pants; and blouse hangers with notches (for thin straps) and ribbed plastic to prevent shirts from sliding off. By picking and choosing which proportions fit for your clothing, you can customize the hangers to fit your closet. That way, for example, you aren’t hanging silk shirts on the stay-put plastic ribbing or wide-neck blouses and cardigans without.
The hangers are also wide and thick enough to prevent creases in the shoulders and arms without being so thick they overtake your closet. They’re 17.5 inches wide from end to end; individual shoulder widths will vary (mine is, for example, 16 inches) but generally, shoulders span ranges from about 15-20 inches, and you won’t want more than a 2-3 inch difference between your own shoulders and the hangers. With hangers too wide, your sleeves will have trouble falling naturally; too skinny, and you’ll have unnatural creases before the shoulder. Their half-inch thickness isn’t quite suit-hanger level, but it’s more than enough to keep unsightly creases from developing in the shoulders. This is not the case for thinner, cheaper hangers like the Slimline, from Closet Candy.
They’re incredibly durable. I pulled up and down at the seam—no breakage.
They’re incredibly durable. I pulled up and down at the seam—no breakage. The only fail point I found was the bar for pants, which took quite a bit of pressure (more than any normal pair of pants would use) to pop out of place. But even when it did break, it was easily popped back into place. They’ve been holding my thick ski pants securely for several months. Compare that to Honey-Can-Do’s wooden hangers, which, for several of our editors, broke quickly with heavier items of clothing.
They’re also a great deal. At about $1.25 per hanger, our pick is among the cheapest wooden options out there. And they get even cheaper if you buy in bulk (good to have as an option, but not good when you’re forced to buy at least 50 at a time, like you do with the Proman Kaskade). That, combined with their solid construction and durability, makes them a great pick for anybody with a normal closet of low- to mid-priced shirts, cardigans, pants, and dresses. Reviewers on The Container Store’s website agree, too, giving the hangers 4.9 stars over 13 reviews.
If our pick is sold out…
Also Great
$58 (for 50) * on Amazon
*This price has changed. Shop wisely.
An alternate pick
Proman Kascade Hanger
If our main all-purpose pick is sold out, the Proman will is your next best bet.
The Proman Kaskade hangers aren’t quite as sturdy as the Container Store’s offering (the pants bar snapped off easily, and was hard to put back in place), and they’re only available in bulk. But if for some reason our top pick is sold out and you need a hanger (or 50) right now, get these.
Besides the Container Store, these were the sturdiest, taking quite a bit of effort to break off the pants bar. And also like our pick, they’re an attractive, uniform blond wood, which goes a long way towards making your closet look more organized. They don’t have grippy spots for loose blouses, but they do have notches for tanks. That should cover most of your wardrobe.
The competition
The Whitmor Sure-Grip hanger was the best plastic hanger we tested—it even had a swivel neck, which we found to be a rarity in a plastic hanger—but Amazon and Walmart have had trouble keeping them in stock for reasonable prices.
Bed Bath and Beyond’s Heavyweight White Hangers are sturdy and durable, but without any sort of grip, any wide-necked, sleeveless, or spaghetti-strapped clothing you have will quickly fall off. They’re super cheap at $0.58 a hanger, but they just don’t work.
We found the anti-slip coating pulled fibers out of delicate fabrics…
We had high hopes for the MAWA super-sticky hangers and were pleased to find they are definitely super grippy. But their benefit is also their downfall; we found the anti-slip coating pulled fibers out of delicate fabrics and could also remove excessive fur from your cat. They might be good for artificial fabrics, but we wouldn’t trust them for your delicates.
The plastic All-In-One hangers at The Container Store promise a lot—the ability to hang shirts, blouses, dresses, pants, and tees all on one hanger. Unfortunately, their razor-thin edge will inevitably create unsightly shoulder creases.
The Slim Grips suffer from the same skinny problem as the All-In-Ones, in addition to being much less durable: they easily broke in half with just a slight tug. Plus the material used to create the grippy shoulders stuck together when two hangers were placed side-by-side.
Closet Candy’s Slimline hangers have a unique shape that’s supposed to help clothing stay up without the use of grippy material. In practice, our blouses still slid off. And the edge is too thin.
We tested two padded hangers: the Whitmor Satin Padded Hanger and The Container Store’s Natural Canvas Padded Hanger. Excepting material, both were very similar: generally useless for most closets. Ostensibly, their rounded, soft shapes prevent shoulder lines in delicate garments, but in practice they were difficult to use. For your expensive clothing, we recommend the Hanger Project instead.
Like the Proman Kaskades, these Wooden Wood Hangers are only available in bulk. I don’t think many people need 100 skirt hangers, and even if they did, I’d still steer them away. The clasps aren’t protected and are thus likely to scratch your clothing, and although they are adjustable, they make a terrible, nails-on-chalkboard squeaking sound when moved.
These Homebasix hangers are simple and sturdy, but considering they’re more expensive than our picks and have no grip for wide-necked clothing, they just aren’t the best pick.
The Organize-It-All Chrome hangers are sleek and sturdy, but have nothing to grip shirts and prevent slippage. Without that, you won’t be able to hang loose blouses and shirts.
Honey-Can-Do’s wooden hangers have broken on several of our editors, and Amazon reviewers complain of recent construction changes for the worst. Pass.
Closet Complete Ultra Thin Velvet Hangers are super popular, and the velvet will absolutely prevent your clothing from slipping. However, too many reviewers report velvet flecking off onto clothing, and in the end, they’re too thin and bound to leave sharp creases.
The Honey-Can-Do Crystal Suit Hangers are too expensive, at more than $2 per hanger.
Friction hangers are well-reviewed but pricey ($3/hanger) without being multipurpose enough to justify the price. Since the hanger doesn’t connect all the way around, it’s really only good for pants and light blouses.
Same thing with Organize.com’s Open Bar Hangers, plus they’re even more expensive.
Hangers.com has a lot of hangers in every appreciable variety, but they’re mostly just available in bulk, too pricey for what you get.
These Olka hangers are interesting, but an all-plastic hanger with no grip isn’t the best pick for most closets.
The Woodlore raw cedar hangers will certainly make your closet smell as fresh as a Vermont forest, but raw wood is prone to snagging. The Wall Street Journal agrees, calling it “unpleasantly rough.”
The Great American Hanger Co’s Unfinished Cedar is also dismissed in the WSJ article, and reviewers are equally negative, saying they’re “thin” with “limited use.”
The (big) step up
Also Great
For expensive garments
The Hanger Project's hangers are expensive but they cover a wide variety of clothing types and are very sturdy.
Various Prices on Hanger Project
For most people, there’s no need to get specialty hangers for each of your garments. But an ill-suited hanger can cause creases, warping, and irreversible damage in delicate fabrics. If you’re spending $200-plus on an item, investing an extra $20 in the hanger is a wise investment because that’s where it will spend most of its time. We recommend picking the hangers that suit specific garment styles and sizes from the Hanger Project. Their individual hangers begin at about $15 to $20, running up to around $25 for thicker suit hangers.
The Hanger Project offers several different profiles for both women’s and men’s clothing in several different widths and contours, customized for everything from delicate blouses to heavy jackets. Each hanger is available in different sizes, so if you are a particularly small or large person, your clothing will never be at risk at damage from a poorly-sized hanger.
On trouser bars and blouse hangers, the Hanger Project uses felt to grip clothing and keep it from sliding off onto your closet floor—a step up from the ribbed plastic used in The Container Store’s wooden hangers.
I wasn’t able to break any of them by pulling them, and the hanger bars stayed firmly attached…
I tested several hangers from the Hanger Project, and found all of them sturdy. I wasn’t able to break any of them by pulling them, and the hanger bars stayed firmly attached no matter how hard I tugged.
If your closet consists of mostly mid-priced clothing and synthetics, there’s no need to spend the money on products from the Hanger Project, which could easily stretch into the many hundreds of dollars if you have a lot of clothes. But we do think the expense is justified if you’re already spending money on your clothing.
For dinner jackets or nicer winter coats
Also Great
$10 each on The Container Store
For heavier winter coats
Superior Natural Wood Hangers
For winter coats made of waxed cotton or leather, you'll need something sturdy like these.
Jacket hangers, which are broad enough in the shoulders to support the weight of a heavier winter coat or sport jacket but don’t have a crossbar to hold pants, can be hard to find. If you’ve got a closet full of winter coats that you don’t worry too much about, or that are very light (down filled), then regular wooden hangers, like The Container Store’s set we recommend, will do just fine.
For a heavier winter coat, or things made of waxed cotton or leather which need support in the shoulders so they won’t stretch over time, we recommend the Container Store’s Superior Natural Wood Hangers for $10. They’re broad enough in the shoulders to provide adequate support and were among the cheapest we could find. (Only the Honey Can Do Wood Side Shoulder Suit hangers were cheaper, at $13 for two, but they were also much worse quality.)
If you want a really nice hanger for your dinner jackets, blazers, or really nice winter coats, our pick is The Hanger Project’s jacket hanger, which has all the wonderful qualities of their suit hangers without the crossbar. But since this hanger is $23, you might as well just buy the suit hangers with crossbars for $2 more.
Our pick for suits
Also Great
Suit hanger
Luxury Wooden Suit Hanger
For nice suits you'll need a special kind of hanger to keep them looking good. This is the best option.
$25 on Hanger Project
Your nice suits need a special kind of hanger—and not just your standard coat or jacket hanger, either. Wirecutter publisher Brian Lam tested six suit-specific hangers, culled from blogs and top picks on sites like Amazon, The Container Store, and Bed Bath and Beyond, finding his favorite to be the Hanger Project’s offering. At $25, these hangers are more expensive than most others. But suits, unlike other kinds of clothing, deserve better support and generally are costly enough to justify a nice hanger.
…suits, unlike other kinds of clothing, deserve better support…
Why this hanger? Because it’s strong enough, being made only of wood and metal hardware, to survive any twisting and bending I put it through, unlike most cheap hangers whose pants bar broke pretty much instantly. It has a generous felt roller bar that won’t leave creases or lines on your pants like some others we tried. It comes in different sizes, so it fits perfectly to your jacket and won’t stretch out or let shoulders sag. And both its shoulders and neck are contoured to fit your suit’s natural shape.
As a bonus, they’re also constructed by the legendary commercial hanger company Beverly Hangers, although these particular hangers are exclusive to and designed by The Hanger Project with the input and direction of suit makers.
Each one is about $24, but as long as you spent more than $400 on your suit, it’s worth the investment. You’re likely to keep these hangers longer than your suit—if not your whole life—since a basic, sturdy hanger won’t go out of style.
The (suit) runner up
Also Great
$28 on Butler Luxury
Alternate suit hanger
Deep Butterscotch Suit Hanger
If our favorite suit hanger is sold out, the Butler Luxury is a good second option.
In terms of quality, the hanger from Butler Luxury was very similar to the Hanger Project’s. It’s made of all wood and metal and also comes in various sizes, but the ends of the hanger arms and the neck area were too square. It’s not a huge deal, but these are definitely not form-fitting like the Hanger Project hanger. They’re also $3 more, so though they’re very good as a back up if The Hanger Project is out of stock, they’re not our first pick.
A budget pick for suits
Also Great
$12 each on The Container Store
Cheaper suit hanger
Superior Natural Wood Hangers with Ribbed Bar
If you don't want to spend a lot then these will do, though if you spent a lot on your suit, it's worth it to splurge on a hanger.
On a budget? We like the Container Store Superior Natural Wood Hangers with Ribbed Bar. They survived the torture test and cost only $12. Your suits deserve better, but if you’re really on a budget, these will be fine. They have generous shoulder support and are well-shaped, but unlike the Hanger Project picks, aren’t available in different sizes.
Suit hanger competition
Other suit hangers were either worse or more expensive than our budget pick.
I tried the popular Honey Can Do Wood Wide Shoulder suit hangers and I could break their pant bars or unseat the single nail used to hold them in place with 2 fingers. It was horrible. That’s why they’re only $13 for two. Avoid.
The Richards Homewares Euro Wood Rib Bar Suit Hangers were only slightly stronger. They’re unsized, generally unimpressively constructed, and cost $16 apiece. For that price, you might as well spend another $10 and get the Hanger Project hangers, which will last forever, or spend $4 less for our budget pick.
We also looked at the Real Suit Hanger with Wooden Pants Bar from Bed Bath and Beyond, which was extremely sturdy for a $13 dollar hanger. This one might have been our value pick, but the jagged pant hanger left dots and creases on our pants after a week of testing. Avoid this one.
What makes a good hanger?
A hanger enhances your closet and prolongs the life of your clothes—it shouldn’t be an afterthought. Good ones will be versatile in the types of shapes available and clothes they can handle. They’ll also have a supportive shape and a strong design made of sturdy materials.
When we say a hanger should be versatile, we don’t mean necessarily it needs to do and hold everything.
When we say a hanger should be versatile, we don’t mean necessarily it needs to do and hold everything. Look for a matching set of hangers with a few different variants. At the most basic, you need a hanger for shirts and pants, and you should also have a hanger with grippy material for loose blouses. You also should have a thick hanger for coats, and, if you own a suit, a specialized hanger for that.
We looked at a few hangers that did “everything,” designed to hold blouses, button-up shirts, pants, skirts, coats—everything. Attempting to accommodate so many clothing styles meant hangers poorly accommodated at least one—not to mention shaping a hanger in that many directions meant building it from flexible plastic, which is (as explained below) inferior to wood. You want your hangers to be slightly more specialized but to come with options for different styles of clothes so you can customize to your closet.
Kirby Allison, founder of the Hanger Project says a hanger should “mimic your body.” That means it needs to be about as wide as your shoulders and thick enough to let your clothing fall naturally. It also should taper off at the ends, not circle under, which can lead to a sharp dropoff and warping of the garment at the shoulders. With that in mind, we ultimately eliminated most plastic models, which tend to either have rounded edges, not be thick enough to provide adequate shape or support, or both.
Durability is, of course, a necessity, especially considering a hanger has so many fail points: Where the hook meets the body, where the bar (if it has one) is attached, where the separate sections are enjoined in the middle. There’s no reason a hanger shouldn’t last a long time.
The hanger’s hook should be wide enough to fit over most closet bars and be capable of twisting to face either way, so that you can ensure your clothes all face the same way in the closet no matter how you put them on the hanger. Luckily these are both pretty basic features in hangers, and we found very few without.
As for material, we ruled out all crystal-cut hangers, which tend to be cheap, easily breakable, and not terribly supportive. We also eliminated velvet hangers, which are often too thin (leading to sharp creases) and have many user complaints of velvet flecking off onto the clothing. Ultimately, we found wood the best hanger material: As Allison said, “If you’re paying for a hanger, you want a nice one.
Second, if you’re spending a lot of money on really fine clothing, you’re buying fine natural fibers. In order to honor that garment it needs to be hanging on a nice wood.” Sure, “honoring a garment” isn’t really a quantifiable descriptor, but we did find that overall, wooden hangers were shaped in a way that allowed garments to fall naturally. Robert Antón Patterson, owner of Revolver clothing boutiques in San Francisco, elaborated: “Wood is more eco-friendly and will last longer.” Unlike the plastic hangers we tested, it was quite difficult to break most of the wooden hangers we tested.
You should absolutely not settle for the wire hangers that you get from the dry cleaner. These are designed for transporting clothes only and can undesirably stretch garments if left hanging for too long. While they do have tons of other household uses, they bend and break easily, don’t hold up well over time, and are prone to rusting in more humid environments. So wire hangers were dispatched from the running before the race began.
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