How the Best Suit Hangers Save Your Suits
Using proper suit hangers is the easiest, simplest way to care for your suits.
The Best Hangers For Your Suits
We’re not going to lie, taking care of a suit is not without its costs. Airing out your suits, steaming them, and dry cleaning them can cost you time, money and energy.
Those who know take care of their suits without spending a lot of time or energy or money. They do one simple thing well, they hang their suits on proper suit hangers.
Hanging your custom suit on cheap wire hanger is like putting your BMW in a dilapidated old shack. When a gust of wind comes along and the whole damn thing collapses, putting a dent in your ride, you won’t have anyone to blame but yourself. Well, hanging your suit improperly can leave your suit bent out of shape like a dented Bimmer. So here’s the skinny on how to do it right.
What Makes Suit Hangers Different
You may be wondering what’s wrong with the hangers they give you at the dry cleaner or those plastic ones you see in the background in the lockers of famous athletes in every post game interview. After all, if it’s good enough for LeBron to hang his swaggy gear on, it’s good enough for you, right? Not necessarily.
A suit hanger is shaped more like you. It’s got a thick shoulder section that supports the shoulders of your jacket. That body is slightly contoured forward too, just like your actual shoulders. All of this helps your jacket retain its shape when you’re not wearing it.
Don’t hang your varsity suits on JV hangers. A good wooden suit hanger like this is a sound investment in your wardrobe.
Get this hanger.
A good suit hanger also features a bottom crossbar for the pants a hint of coarseness to it, often in the form of ridges in the bar or a velvet strip on the bar. This coarseness provides a bit of grip so your pants to slip off of the bar when you hang them up.
Put all of this together and you’ve got a good suit hanger. Make said hanger out of wood and you’ve got a great one.
Why Wood Hangers Make Good Suit Hangers
So we’ve covered the benefits of the hanger’s shape, but why wood, you may ask? A good suit hanger doesn’t have to be made of wood. But there are some important reasons that wood, specifically cedar wood, reigns supreme in the hanger game.
- Cedar repels moths and other insects. Nobody wants moths anywhere near their wool. Hanging your suits on a cedar hanger is like hiring an insect security guard to patrol your closet’s perimeter 24/7.
- Cedar smells great. Is this crucial, no, but have you smelled mothballs? In light of #1 above, we think cedar’s smell is a serious asset.
- Cedar absorbs bad odors. We’re not saying you should be frying catfish on a hot plate by your closet door, but if you did, cedar would be right there to keep the smells out of your clothes. And even after that, it would STILL give off its pleasant aroma.
- Cedar is strong. If you’re going to go to the trouble of getting yourself a suit hanger, you might as well get one that’ll last.
Moths can’t stand cedar. Moths are wool-eating idiots.
Who are you going to take advice from, clothing experts or wool-eating idiots?
Get this hanger.
So at this point, you’ve probably seen the light and are on board with getting yourself some wooden suit hangers, preferably cedar. What’s left to do but hang your stuff on them? You got that, right? Hold on there, partner, before you jump ship. Make sure you’re not making some of the common hanging mistakes.
Space Issues?
As a people who at a New York based clothing brand, we know a thing or two about fitting a big wardrobe into a small closet. In some cases, wooden suit hangers like we described above are not practical. But you don’t use flimsy hangers that leave your suits misshapen just because you’re short on space. There’s no need to sacrifice your suits to the efficiency gods, you just have to compromise.
Plastic hangers aren’t as sturdy as wooden ones and won’t repel moths, but plastic that’s been molded to fill your jacket’s shoulders will keep your suits from creasing while they’re hanging up and save you some room in your closet for, you know, more suits.
How to Hang Dress Pants on Hangers
There are two methods for hanging suit pants. The most common, and simplest, way is to hold the hanger in one hand and hold the pants upside down by the hems in the other hand with the creases lined so that the pant legs are parallel and flat. Then, slip the legs through the middle opening of the hanger until about ⅔ of the pants are through and then let them rest on the crossbar. Be sure they lay smoothly on the bar so there are no wrinkles.
The alternative way to hang your suit pants requires a bit more skill. This time the hanger should be stationary (hanging on the rack) because you’ll need both hands for this. Standing perpendicular to the hanger, hold one leg of the pants in each hand. Fold one leg through the hanger letting it rest on the crossbar so that the hem is about an inch from the crotch. Then fold the opposite leg over top of the first leg and let it hang over the crossbar of the hanger. The result is a pair of perfectly balanced pants that won’t slip off the hanger.
How to Hang Suit Jackets on Suit Hangers
Everybody knows how to hand a jacket on a hanger, right? Well, yes, but even suit wearing veterans can make some hanging mistakes. Like what? The worst offense is buttoning your jackets when they’re on the hanger. But the hanger, while thick, does not take up the same amount of space as you do. So, the jacket should have some overlap in the front.
If you button the jacket, the jacket bunches up in the front. Leave it hanging like that for too long and you’ll have a wrinkly jacket, thus defeating the whole purpose of hanging it.
Hang Loose
Hopefully, we’ve shown you that hanging up your suits properly is really easy and a great way to preserve your suits. Of course, there’s more you can do. We’ve documented how there are a lot of things you can do to take care of your suits, but it all starts with how you store it when you’re not wearing it. So hang in there, are your suits will love you for it.
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