The 5 Best Clothes Hangers

Material Type: Wood | Maximum Width: 17.5-inches

The Proman Products Kascade Natural Wood is a wooden wide-armed clothes hanger with excellent overall performance. Its 17.5-inch arm span easily hangs clothing between small and extra-large sizes. The wooden exterior adds an attractive and coordinated style to your closet with the ability to accommodate strappy dresses, heavy trousers, and your favorite dress shirts. The most unique feature is its space-saving ability that allows you to stack garments into small spaces. It uses a small ring in the neck of the hanger that you can easily hang another from, which makes it incredibly versatile. This is our favorite wood hanger for its space-saving features, stylish look, and sturdy construction.

Though the arms and hook are relatively durable, the quality of the bottom rung leaves something to be desired. Only a single nail secures the rung on each side, which easily came apart during our durability testing. In contrast, it was quite sturdy while holding the heaviest of jeans and work pants. It features cups along the arms for hanging strappy garments, but it isn't completely non-slip. After four months of use, this model seems to be holding up and is still our favorite stylish, space-saving wooden clothes hanger.

Material Type: Plastic | Maximum Length: 16.5-inches

If you are seeking a good deal and some consistency in your closet, the Sharpty Black Plastic is an excellent high-value option. The shoulders are sturdy and won't flex when you hang a heavy jacket or shirt over the arms. This plastic hanger accommodates clothing of all sizes. We like that it also has two smaller hangers off the arms to easily hold a strappy dress or top. Plus, clothing slides off easily if you're an on-the-go type who doesn't like to take the hanger off the rod and pulls clothing off instead.

The lower price also means lower-quality construction. The plastic is pretty thin and might potentially snap with hard bending. We recommend purchasing a few extra to replace any that may break if you choose this option. When you hang a heavy pair of pants, the lower rung will bend out (but not break) due to the thinner material. Also, the thin arms don't provide much grip, so slippery garments may slide off. We broke many of these during testing just by pulling off heavy jackets. Still, for most folks seeking a good deal for a hanger that'll do the bare minimum, this is the one to purchase, especially if you're hanging lightweight garments.

Material Type: Open-Ended Metal with Rubber Coating | Maximum Width: 13.5-inches

The JS Hanger Non-slip Pants Hangers is a unique open-ended hanger that we came to love. It is very easy to fold a pair of pants or skirt over the rung, and it boasts a neat look. The heavy metal construction stood strong in our durability tests, while the rubberized exterior is completely non-slip. After using them for the last four months, they still look new. They stack well side-by-side, and the 13.5-inch arm span is long enough to accommodate most pants and skirt sizes. We also love the value. Though most lower-quality options are more expensive, you're likely to keep these for many years without them breaking over time. They are sturdy, easily balanced, and hold heavy pants or light skirts with ease.

Unfortunately, we can't say that the “space-saving” claim is terribly accurate. Also, this model lacks clips to hang a skirt or pants from the waist; you instead have to drape them over the lower bar, meaning your pants may get a crease, especially if the material is delicate or thin. Lastly, the rubberized material attracts pet hair, which can be hard to remove. Aside from these gripes, we love the durable construction that makes it an excellent choice for pants and skirts.

Material Type: Plastic and Metal | Maximum Width: 12-inches (adjustable)

The HOUSE DAY Clear Plastic hanger works well for pants and suits. It features a plastic construction that doesn't flex or bend under the weight of heavy denim or a suit. Another unique feature is the small space at the neck of the hook, which allows you to stack the hangers for additional space-saving. The rotating hook allows you to still clip and unclip garments while the hangers are stacked vertically. Also, the adjustable clamps easily accommodate pants or skirts of different sizes, including plus sizes. Particularly of note is the excellent price. Of all hangers specifically built for skirts and pants, these present reliable features at a good value.

Even though this hanger works well in any closet space, it can break. During our testing period, no hangers broke when hanging up garments or pulling clothes off, but when we subjected them to our breakage tests, they immediately shattered after flexing and bending them just a single time. This is the one to buy for most who are simply looking for an excellent deal with the best all-around performance for hanging skirts and pants.

Material Type: Velvet Finish and Metals | Maximum Length: 16-inches

The Zober Premium Velvet is a versatile clothes hanger with a plethora of hanging options. This product features a velvet body with a wire lower rung and clamps. The velvet ensures a non-slip grip on the arms, with little divots to accommodate straps for hanging work shirts or dresses. Slippery silk shirts are no problem. The lower rung is a thin metal material with vinyl-tipped adjustable clamps. We tested it with suits, jeans, and heavier items, and the clamps are able to hold the garments without trouble.

While we appreciate the versatility, we aren't too impressed with the construction quality of this hanger. We noticed the velvet flakes off onto clothing. The arms are fairly sturdy for shirts and jackets, but the lower rung is flimsy. Use the clamps to hang heavy pants, and the entire hanger flexes and bends. During our durability tests, it broke after just two bends, with the lower wire easily bending with little work. Plus, static makes it hard to slide fuzzy or fleece-lined clothing onto the hanger. Aside from these issues, it's still the most versatile option available. It is best for hanging a shirt or jacket and can accommodate a pair of pants or skirts without making a crease.

Material Type: Wood | Maximum Width: 17.25-inches

The Zober Wooden Suit is a stylish hanger that'll look good in any closet. It can easily accommodate shirts, skirts, pants, dresses, and more. It offers a sturdy construction that won't flex or bend under the weight of even your heaviest suits. The lower rung is wrapped in a non-slip vinyl coating, helping to keep lightweight materials in place. The wooden style will make any closet organizationally appealing, while the 17.25-inch arm span can accommodate clothing of all sizes. It also looks great.

Unfortunately, the lower rung easily pulls off, so the Zober loses points in the durability metric. This hanger is almost identical to the Proman Kascade, except its wingspan is a little smaller, it doesn't have a space-saving rung, and comes with a non-slip lower rung. It is also expensive. That said, for those seeking non-slip performance in a wooden construction where space isn't a concern, this option might be exactly what you might be looking for.

Material Type: Metal & Rubberized Clamps | Maximum Width: 10-inches (adjustable)

The Mawa by Reston Lloyd Space-Saving is a space-saving metal hanger with clamps that allows you to hang your pants and dresses from the waist to avoid creases. In addition, the claps are super-strong and bomber, with a rubberized tip. We hung heavy pants and delicates, and they didn't fall or get damaged. These narrow hangers are slim, and when all your pants are hung this way, it saves you space compared to hangers that require you to fold them over the lower rung. We love the durable materials used, which is a bonus.

Perhaps the biggest downside is the price. Even though it's quite durable, each hanger is more than twice the price of other options in this review. The super-narrow profile (only 11 inches across) only allows you to hang slim pants and dresses without folding them vertically. That said, if you're looking for a durable metal hanger and your clothes aren't too wide, and you're willing to shell out a little more money, it might just be worth it.

Material Type: Plastic | Maximum Length: 16-inches

The Utopia Home White Plastic is another high-value option constructed from thinner plastics. The design is standard and quite simple. You can hang any kind of clothing garment or size, making it quite versatile. We appreciate the slots in the hanger's arms that allow you to effortlessly attach spaghetti straps or other items without an issue. We also love the price that's a little more expensive than our cheapest contenders but less expensive than most options out there.

While we love the great price and simple functionality, this is far from being super-sturdy or high quality. In our bending tests, it snapped after minimal bending. Additionally, while we like the slot in the arm, it's harder to pull the clothes off this hanger as it can snag on these points. Aside from that, this is another high-value standard plastic hanger that'll look great in any closet.

Material Type: Velvet and Metals | Maximum Length: 16-inches

The Amazon Basics Slim Velvet Non-Slip is designed for those that love non-slip performance and a great deal. The velvet ensures that even the slinkiest of shirts and dresses stay in place. It utilizes divots along the arm's length to hang shirts and garments of any size. It also features a trouser bar that allows you to easily hang your delicates, skirts, shorts, or pants. The value is hard to beat, making it a great option for a velvet hanger.

As is true with most velvet hangers reviewed, the velvet can scrape off easily, which can get attracted to clothing. In addition, expect to replace these hangers in time; the construction is lackluster. Though it is sturdy enough for suits and other heavier garments, it's flimsy and breaks after just one bend. For those seeking a velvet construction at a great price, this is one of the best-valued options we tested.

Why Trust GearLab

Our testing starts with research into the most popular clothes hangers on the market. We select budget-friendly options, then order each at retail price. Finally, we actually test each out in our closets. We continue testing throughout the year. We hang heavy pants, skirts, shirts, jeans, jackets, and more. Not only do we use each hanger for a few weeks, but we measure arm span, note features, and try to bend and break each option to measure durability. Finally, we take note of top performers, which forges our recommendations. After spending hours with each clothing hanger, we can say we've done the legwork to truly test each product to form real recommendations that'll help you on your way to the best option out there.

Amber King leads up this review and has over seven years of experience reviewing many different types of gear, including household items and outdoor apparel. As a past retail manager working for Patagonia in Telluride, Colorado, she knows what goes into a quality clothes hanger, having seen many that simply don't stack up when being used in the store. In addition to her experience in the industry and as a total gear nerd, she's a science teacher. She has years of experience creating comparative and hands-on tests to determine true performance differences. Not to mention, she's been hanging her own clothing for over 30 years. We also consult with other clothing experts in the field to see where they think the best uses lie.

Analysis and Test Results

We selected a wide range of models to help cover exactly what the market has to offer. Rubberized open-ended options, lower-priced plastic classics, and classy-looking wooden products. We even chose skirt and pants-specific options to help you optimize your space. Each is evaluated across a similar set of metrics and scored to help you see just how well each performs across all our tests.

Sturdiness

We believe that a sturdy hanger is the key to success and dictates quality and ease of use. Solid materials, excellent construction, and longer arms typically make an excellent product. To test this, we loaded each up with five pounds of clothing to see if any bowed or flexed. We also look at the lower rung (if it's there) to see how it holds up when pulling off a piece of clothing.

For general use clothes hangers, wooden hangers like the Proman Natural Wood Kaskade and Zober Wooden do the best when it comes to stability. This is because of the full wooden construction, long length of the arms, and thicker arm construction that'll easily hold a suit or a solid pair of slacks. Both are alike in construction, each with a lower rung that isn't nearly as stable as the upper arm. While they could both take a heavy pair of extra-large jeans, we did note a little flex in the lower rung. The upper arms, however, are bomber.

Of the clothes hangers specific for hanging skirts and pants, we absolutely can't get enough of the JS Non-slip. This super durable metal option has an open concept that is perfectly balanced. When you load it up with a light skirt or heavy pair of trousers, it sits upright and will hold plenty of weight. We also like the Mawa by Reston-Lloyd that features solid metal clamps for hanging clothing full-length to avoid creases. It is, however, narrow and isn't as wide as the House Day Skirt, which is a sturdy plastic skirt-pant hanger that'll keep its shape under the weight as well.

Ease of Use

Which options can you easily load and unload? Can you pull clothes right off when you're in a rush, or is more care required? In this testing category, we look at how easy each hanger is to use. Clothes hangers might seem simple in general, but there are definitely differences that we note after using each comparatively for three weeks.

Our favorite easy-to-use options are the Proman Natural Wood Kascades and Zober Wooden. Both are wooden construction with thicker arms that are easy to slide a pair of pants or a sweater onto. We also love that the hook is quite burly with a 360 turn, which allows you to set it up in a number of configurations. Like the Sharpty Plastic, you can easily pull clothes off without them flipping off the rod. The slippery arm materials also make it simple to slide clothing on quickly and easily.

Of the skirt and pant-specific clothes hangers, we love the JS Non-Slip Pants hanger. The open-concept design allows you to pull clothing off easily, even though the non-slip coating does require a bit more work. We also love that you don't need to deal with clamps, which takes more time than when hanging pants and skirts on the House Day Skirt Hangers and Mawa By Reston-Lloyd.

The Utopia Home is another plastic clothes hanger that's easy enough to slide clothes onto. Unfortunately, when pulling them off, the incut spaces on the shoulder tends to catch clothing. The velvet-coated hangers, like the Zober Premium Velvet Skirt and Amazon Basics Slim Velvet score lower because of the non-slip coating that helps keep clothing on but also makes it harder to slide fleecy clothes onto.

Durability

In addition to assessing the quality of each hanger out of the box, we also subjected each product to a bending test. With a focus on budget-friendly options, it's not surprising that many of these aren't the highest quality, but after bending several, we've got a good idea of which you will have to buy again and which are meant to last for the long haul. In general, those with thicker metal or wood constructions typically do better and will last you longer than plastic or thinner wire options.

The most durable option by far is the JS Non-Slip. Our biceps and triceps got a great workout trying to bend it out of shape. Even after attempting bends for over 10 minutes, we still couldn't get it to break, but we did eventually get it to deform. The Mawa by Reston-Lloyd is another burly metal product but seems flimsier than the JS. We were able to bend and break it after three hand bends. The material first bent and then eventually broke with ample force applied. The House Day Skirt, on the other hand, completely shattered after one hard bend into many pieces.

Wooden clothes hangers like the Zober Wooden Suit and Proman Kaskade have fairly durable arms, but the lower rungs are cheap. With one big pull, we were able to easily pull the lower rung out as a single nail only secures it. We wouldn't expect these to break in a regular use case unless the circumstances were quite extenuating. The arms wouldn't break until we flexed and bent them six times, each with similar performance.

Of the cheaper plastic construction, the Sharpty is the most durable. It'll still flex under weight, but it took three big bends (with a lot of force) to snap it in half during the bending tests. The Utopia Home Plastic, on the other hand, broke after one hard bend and almost shattered. While prices are similar, the Sharpty is a far more durable option.

Non-Slip Performance

Are you sick of your delicates or slippery cami falling off the hanger and falling to the floor? In this metric, we assess which models offer the best non-slip performance. Those with a velvet finish or a rubberized coating do best, while others simply don't compare.

The clothes hangers with the best all-around non-slip performance are the velvet contenders, which include the Zober Premium Velvet Skirt and Amazon Basics Slim Velvet Non-Slip. The texturized surface is quite friction-y, ensuring that your clothing will stay in place and off the floor.

In addition to a textured surface, other ways to make a hanger non-slip include incorporating grooves, hooks, or clamps into the architecture. For example, plastic options like the Sharpty Black Hanger and Utopia Home Plastic have these features, which allow you to hang delicates with sewn-in straps with ease. The Utopia Plastic is the easiest to use as the grooves are built into the structure of the hanger itself to prevent slippage. Aside from these features, the plastic is quite slippery, and clothing will typically slip right off.

Pant and skirt holders have clamps to keep clothing in place or an open-ended design. The JS Non-Slip Pants lacks clamps but uses a rubberized coating that sticks to clothes to prevent them from falling to the floor. The best clamps on a clothes hanger set-up are those with rubberized tips, like that found in the Mawa by Reston-Lloyd. These clamps are super strong and burly. Other clamps like those found in the House Day Skirt and Zober Premium don't have as much force behind the spring, and the vinyl tips keep most articles of clothing in place and safe from damage.

Wooden clothes hangers, on the other hand, have a larger arm length and width, which increases surface area to avoid slippage, but they are still slippery. Not even the shoulder grooves won't prevent silk shirts from slipping off. We do appreciate the vinyl-lined trouser rung on the Zober Wooden Suit that makes it less slippery than the Proman Kascade and will keep your skirts and pants in place.

Features

Features that save space or allow you to add more clothing per hanger offer exceptional functionality and value. Some options incorporate excellent and unexpected space-saving performance. In our testing, we try to load each clothes hanger up with different types of clothing to figure out the limitations of each product. We measure the amount of space each grouping of hangers takes up in order to quantitatively assess which provides the best space-saving options. Those living in small spaces where storage is at a premium will appreciate these features.

One of the most versatile hangers is the Zober Premium Velvet Skirt. It features a non-slip construction that allows you to hang basically any garment of clothing in any configuration. It doesn't have space-saving features aside from the fact that you can slip your pants and skirts through them, which takes up less space overall.

Two stand-out space-saving clothes hangers include the Proman Kascade and House Skirt. The Proman Kascade features a small circle in the hook, which allows you to stack them when you've got clothing loaded onto the arms. You can easily unhook or keep them in position while you take clothing on and off. The House Skirt also has a similar feature but is a dedicated pant and skirt hanger. It also features a wider profile, allowing you to easily hang clothing of all different sizes. Both options are great if you are living in small spaces, while others stack in less space-saving ways.

Conclusion

There are so many online options to buy, and without touching or feeling each, it's difficult to assess quality and use. You're lucky to come across us, as we've done the research and all the hands-on testing. As an unbiased review, we hope that we have helped you find what you're looking for to help you organize your closet.