Clothes hanger
A clothes hanger, coat hanger, coathanger, or simply a hanger, is a hanging device in the shape/contour of:
- Human shoulders designed to facilitate the hanging of a coat, jacket, sweater, shirt, blouse or dress in a manner that prevents wrinkles, with a lower bar for the hanging of trousers or skirts.
- Clamp for the hanging of trousers, skirts, or kilts. Both types can be combined in a single hanger
The clothing hanger was originally designed to allow people quick access to their clothing as well as designate an area, in their home, to keep their clothing in. It was also used to keep clothing dry or without a wrinkle.
There are three basic types of clothes hangers. The first is the wire hanger, which has a simple loop of wire, most often steel, in a flattened triangle shape that continues into a hook at the top. The second is the wooden hanger, which consists of a flat piece of wood cut into a boomerang-like shape with the edges sanded down to prevent damage to the clothing, and a hook, usually of metal, protruding from the point. Some wooden hangers have a rounded bar from tip to tip, forming a flattened triangle. This bar is designed to hang the trousers belonging to the jacket. The third kind and most used in today's world are plastic coat hangers, which mostly mimic the shape of either a wire or a wooden hanger. Plastic coat hangers are also produced in smaller sizes to accommodate the shapes of children's clothes.
Some hangers have clips along the bottom for suspending skirts. Dedicated skirt and trousers hangers may not use the triangular shape at all, instead using just a rod with clips. Other hangers have little rings coming from the top two bars to hang straps from tank-tops on. Specialized pant hanger racks may accommodate many pairs of trousers. Foldable clothes hangers that are designed to be inserted through the collar area for ease of use and the reduction of stretching are an old, yet potentially useful variation on traditional clothes hangers. They have been patented over 200 times in the U.S. alone, as in U.S. Patent 0586456, awarded in 1897 to George E. Hideout.
Unintended uses
The wire is versatile, and wire clothes hangers are often used as cheap sources of semi-tough wire, more available than baling wire for all sorts of home projects. The use of wire clothes hangers as makeshift welding rods has been common for nearly 100 years. Similarly, many similar do-it-yourself and children's projects use wire hangers as holders of various types, from keeping a brake caliper from hanging by the brake line during auto repair work to securing a gate on a birdcage. The much-loved 'Advent crown' made for children's TV program Blue Peter was made from four-wire coathangers. Coathangers can be used to make dowsing rods. After sanding, wire hangers are used to conduct electricity for various purposes, from hot-wiring cars to games to testing hand steadiness. They are commonly used to gain forcible entry into older automobiles whose locks and entry systems are not protected from such methods. There is a long history of using wire coat hangers as replacement car radio antennas. Clothes hangers are also commonly used as an implement for roasting marshmallows or hot dogs at camp-outs.
In October 2007, Collecticus magazine reported that clothes hangers have become collectible, especially those with a famous company or event advertised across the front. For example, a 1950 Butlins hanger sold for £10.10 in October 2006 within Collecticus.
In 1995, while performing surgery in an airliner at 35,000 feet (11,000 m), orthopedic surgeon Angus Wallace and his fellow doctor Tom Wong used an unfolded coathanger, sterilized with brandy, as a trocar[Note 1] to stiffen a catheter for use as a chest tube to relieve a passenger's pneumothorax.
Because of the spacing of the clamps, coat hangers with clamps (see picture to the right), this style of hanger is often used in BDSM play as nipple clamps.
Straightened-out wire clothes hangers have been used to perform unsafe and illegal abortions (frequently self-induced) by inserting the wire through the cervix and into the uterus in order to cause the uterus to expel its contents. This life-threatening method poses severe risks to the person on whom it is performed. At pro-choice protests, wire clothes hangers have been used as symbols of the danger of criminalizing elective abortion.
Notes
- ↑ Trocars allow passive evacuation of excess gas or fluid from organs within the body.
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