I remember first seeing thin velvet hangers (you know the hangers I’m talking about – they are super thin covered in velvet) during one of my surreptitious visits to the QVC channel. (Once in a while I just like to see what they are selling! I’ve gotten a few good gift ideas by doing this). I have to say the presentations about these hangers turned me off.  They would show a closet overflowing with clothes then compare it to a closet that clearly had less than half of the same items hanging on the new super thin hangers. I snorted in outrage and changed the channel. It was pretty obvious the hangers were not creating a lot of change.

One of the most crammed closets in our house is the coat closet in the front hall. In fact, when guests come, we just lay their coats on the hope chest in the hall instead of trying to make room in the closet. Moving coats in that closet is an athletic event. You have to lean in, insert half of your body between two coats, then lean with all of your strength to get them to scootch over. We often cannot find the coat we need simply because they’re all falling off the hangers and smushed in too tightly.

After my parents came for Thanksgiving and getting their coats hung up was an Olympic event, I decided something had to be done. I really looked hard at what was happening in that closet. With four people, four seasons, and a daughter with a wardrobe hoarding problem (said in my most loving tone), we have way too many coats. I was able to weed out a couple to donate, but there is really no real thinning out to be done. Then I noticed that almost all of the coats are on big wooden or plastic suit hangers. The fat ones – at least an inch wide and if you take into account that they are curved, they actually take up several inches each. I started wondering if replacing these hangers could make a difference. I’m not going back to wire hangers and while we have some white plastic tubular hangers around I decided to try the new thin velvet hangers.

The package of 50 arrived from Amazon and the box was pretty small for 50 hangers. I got to work swapping them out. I was impressed. They are super thin. The velvet means nothing slips off of them.

They did make a difference in our crazy closet. No, it did not make it appear as spacious and empty as the QVC presentations imply. They make it easier to move the coats across the rack and now we can definitely squeeze in a couple more for guests more easily. I felt more organized with these in place – everything is uniform and it is easier to move the coats around the closet. The bottom line is if you have too many clothes in too small a space this is not going to solve your problem. It will however make it a bit easier to move things around and will give you a little extra space, particularly if you are replacing big nasty hangers.

I did break one hanger as I tried to reach around to squeeze the last coat in the very back of the closet. It just was not willing to bend to get there.

I’m going to buy another box of them to use in my clothes closet mostly because I just like them and they will prevent things from slipping off the hangers. I don’t have a ton of big fat hangers there, but these are thinner than the ones I am using now so it will give me some space.

Have you tried these hangers? What did you think?