General-purpose hangers
Our home editor has been using IKEA Bumerang hangers since late 2017—for everything from winter coats to blazers to silk shirts—with neither an issue nor a complaint. But in comparison with our top all-purpose pick, price reflects quality. In our testing, we found a rough wooden finish, inconsistent construction, and a weakly secured pant bar to be common.
Kirby Allison’s very expensive Women’s Blouse & Sweater Hanger with Clips (Profile B1) is designed with a smaller shoulder width and a sharper arm angle. The 1.15-inch shoulder flare is flocked at the ends, and the notches are covered in felt flocking to further prevent slipping. This hanger also has clips for skirts with ribbed rubber clamps. This is a beautiful fine-garment hanger for delicate blouses, but at $22 each (at the time of publication), the Profile B1 is not worth it for most people.
We previously recommended the Container Store Basic Natural Wood Hangers, but they have been discontinued.
Space-saving hangers
We used to recommend the CleanBoss Anti-Microbial Slim Velvet Joy Hangers (previously called Joy Mangano Huggable Hangers) and they’re still a reliable option. Like our flocked picks from Costco and Amazon, the CleanBoss Hangers also shed somewhat and are sturdily built. However, they’re a bit pricier than those picks (about $1 per hanger compared to Amazon’s 35¢ ) and they come in fewer colors (right now, only black is available on the CleanBoss site though a few others appear to exist).
The Container Store’s Non-Slip Velvet Hangers performed just as well as our pick from Amazon Basics, and we like that you can buy them in smaller quantities (a case of 10). They also come in two design options: shirt (with no pant bar) or suit (with pant bar). But they’re a little more expensive and harder to find in stock. We also noticed that shortly after we purchased ours, the reviews have gotten significantly worse.
We were hopeful that the Hangers.com Flocked Wood Top Hanger W/ Notches could be the Goldilocks of hangers: the sturdiness of wood with the grippines of velvet. The wooden part feels sturdy enough, but the hook looks unfinished, feels loose, and has sharp edges that can catch. The stem of the hook is also very short. And these hangers are about seven times more expensive than our Amazon Basics pick.
Target’s Brightroom Flocked Hangers shed worse than any other flocked hangers we tested, leaving black residue on cotton with very little pressure applied. We rejected these immediately.
The Tosnail Super Grippy Slip-Reducing Contour Shirt Hangers look like a knockoff of the Mawa hangers. But some reviewers complained that the rubber coating was too sticky, and others said this hanger was too large for small tops.
Pant and skirt hangers
The reinforced and solid construction of the Butler Luxury Trouser Hanger is nice, but it’s almost double the normal width. They’re less expensive than the Kirby Allison trouser hanger, but the opening for slotting pants in is a bit too narrow.
The Container Store Chrome Metal Pant Hangers used to be our pant hanger pick, but they’ve been discontinued. If you can still find them in-store, they’re an excellent choice.
The JS Hanger Slacks Pant Hangers’ biggest drawback is the sticky rubber coating on the pant bar. In our testing it was a dust magnet that transferred lint onto darker fabrics. And we had to remove the hanger from the rod to retrieve our pants, defeating the convenience of an open-end design.
We liked the felt-lined trouser grip of Kirby Allison’s Luxury Wooden Clamping Trouser Hanger, which is designed for storing pants upside down from the cuff, reducing the formation of wrinkles. But it’s expensive and really only useful for dress slacks.
The Whitmor Ebony Chrome Add-On Skirt/Slack Hanger has a tier hook that protrudes, causing dimples in skirts.
Suit and coat hangers
The Butler Luxury Tailor Made Suit Hanger has noticeably less-rounded and rougher finished ends in comparison with Kirby Allison’s Suit Hangers. It’s big and bulky, and only a few would fit in our closet.
The Container Store Superior Natural Wooden Coat and Suit Hanger is available only in 18-inch models, for suit sizes 43 to 48. We dismissed it because of its inflexibility in sizing, but if 43 to 48 is your size, and you need a more budget-friendly suit hanger, this would be a good option.
The Wooden Hangers USA 18″ Ultimate Wide Suit Hanger is designed to hold extra-large suits, but our hanger’s pant bar had visible gaps and rough edges.
Original reporting by Alex Arpaia and Katie Okamoto. This article was edited by Daniela Gorny and Christine Ryan.
