GB2148107A - Hangers - Google Patents

Abstract

An adjustable clothes-hanger has telescopic members 1, 2, 3, 4 so that the arms and cross-piece may be expanded or retracted as required to provide a hanger for universal use. The inner and outer members of the telescopic members are slidable on one another and the maximum lengths of the arms and cross-piece are restricted by stops 8, 9, 11, 12 in order to prevent the inner and outer members from coming apart. <IMAGE>

Description

SPECIFICATION Hangers The invention relates to hangers, in particularto clothes hangers which are adjustable in size.

Clothes-hangers of different types are well known and used in households, shops, warehouses, clothing-factories hotels and a plurality of other places. Clothes-hangers are made in different forms and of different materials. However, the sizes (except the ones made exclusively for children) are essentially the same, although the clothes to be hung up are fairly different in respect of type, cut, size and destination. In addition, the sizes of people are also changing from the childhood to adulthood and in accordance with body-weight, the sizes of clothes are also changing. At the same time with changing fashion clothes again change.

Clothes-hangers should be of the correct size for the clothes to be hung up enabling the material to be unstressed during hanging, without crinkling and/or stretching. In practice that would mean that a family would need as many hangers of different sizes, as the number of types and sizes of clothes to be found in the household. Such a size-assortment is not available, however, and the clothes-hangers available in commerce, though slightly different in size, are not sold according to their size, but in compliance with changes in fashion and productional technology.

Accordingly, the use of clothes-hangers of improper size often results in damaged clothes. This becomes most obvious with knitted things or those with a tendency to stretch any other heavy clothes.

Washed clothes are sometimes put on hangers for drying and if a wrongly sized hanger is used the clothes suffer deformations and get stretched.

When children are growing up, small clotheshangers become unwanted, as they occupy a lot of place, and later, if needed, new ones are purchased.

Up to now, no solution is known for universal use.

Several conventional clothes-hangers have been known for many years. The oldest types, still used, are made of wood, with a simple outline produced mostly in one single size. The single parts may be dowelled and glued or simply fastened with nails.

Later hangers had combinations of wood and metal, or metal alone, or coated steel-wire. Recently monolithic synthetic hangers made by injection moulding have appeared and a great number of these hangers is available. Now, wooden clotheshangers are fashionable again. As compared to traditional designs, the difference is that they are generally made of one single workpiece, in a special shape, model-designed and they are very expensive.

These types of clothes-hangers are available in very different forms which can be light-weight or more robust. Specially-shaped hangers are available for jackets, overcoats, ladies' wear, trousers or skirts.

The common disadvantage of the known types of clothes-hanger is that they are made for one single size and, accordingly, for every type or size of clothes a separate new hanger ought to be bought but as already mentioned hangers are not sold in different sizes and so the previously mentioned damage of stored clothes remains an incessant problem.

The same problem arises, when storing or transporting clothes-hangers en masse; when travelling, they occupy vast space in packages. In addition, the majority of hangers, in particular wooden and metal ones or the combination thereof, are of considerable weight. Although for solving problems of transport and storage several collapsible hangers are known, e.g. those made of metal wire, these are often not strong enough for hanging clothes.

Clothes-hangers with a variable size have been developed, for hanging skirts or trousers. The construction of these hangers fundamentally differs from the known, traditional ones. They consist of one or two pairs of spaced apart toothed holding elements facing each other and interconnected with a telescopic rod. The holding elements are strained by a spring into the outer extreme positions and the skirt or trousers can be hung by pressing the holding elements together against the spring force.

Thereafter they are inserted into the waist of the skirt and the legs or the waist of the trousers and after having released the holding elements, these are forced apart by the spring and the clothes can be hung up.

Such hangers are suitable only for storing trousers and skirts. Another drawback is that they are produced in one size only. As a consequence, gripping is only possible for a narrow range of sizes.

Manipulating these hangers is quite difficult because pressing against the spring requires a large force. On the other hand, a looser spring would not allow as wide a range of sizes to be gripped.

Clothes-hangers made when narrow trousers were in fashion are unusable for trousers with wide legs and vice versa.

Accordingly a main object of the present invention is to provide a clothes-hanger of adjustable size equally suitable for storing the clothes of a child, woman or man, and able to follow the size and width e.g. of the shoulder accurately. A further object is to be able to adjust the hanger to the size needed easily, without auxiliary means and so that the hanger does not leave the adjusted position.

According to the invention, we propose a hanger comprising two connected arms subtending an obtuse angle therebetween and a cross-piece connected between the arm ends, wherein the arms and the cross-piece each comprise at least two telescopic members which are slidable over one another so that the lengths of the arms and crosspiece are extendable from a minimum to a maximum, and stops for limiting the maximum arm length.

In a preferred embodiment an adjustable clotheshanger consists of three V-shaped elements wherein the single elements are formed by cooperable members together defining a triangular shape.

Preferably, the outer members of the arms and the cross-piece are substantially T-shaped in cross section and the inner members have a cross section comprising two spaced apart L-shaped mirror images, such that the stem portion of the outer member is held within the inner member where the inner and outer members overlap.

Also preferably, the ends of the outer members are curved so as to provide a substantially smooth join between the inner and outer members of the arms and the cross-piece.

By this construction, a simple universally applicable clothes-hanger is provided which can be effectively used for any type of clothing. It can be easily transported and stored. Thus, the clotheshanger according to the invention can be used for hanging clothes of different size, shape and type without crinkling and or stretching.

Furthermore, the clothes-hanger according to the invention can be set to any predetermined size without discrete intermediate stages and without using any auxiliary means. The dimensions of the hanger, compared to the largest size can be reduced almost to a half. When pulled apartthe hanger is protected against falling apart by the stops.

As a consequence of adjustability without intermediate stages, the hanger does not cause either bulging or stretching. When set to the smallest size the space occupied is minimal and so it can be economically transported and stored. Hence, while travelling, the hanger can be easily placed in a handbag or suitcase. It can be produced from diverse materials in an easy manner. It is cheap and lightweight. Produced by injection moulding using a synthetic material, the total weight of a welldesigned hanger of average size is less, than 100 g.

Simultaneously but separately a coat, trousers and skirt can be hung onto the hanger. It is suitable for storing children's ladies' wear and men's wear. If under exceptional force part of the hanger has broken, it can be easily and cheaply replaced.

An embodiment of a hanger according to this invention is described by way of example, with reference to the drawings, in which: Figure 1 is the front view of an embodiment according to the invention, Figure 2 is the bottom view of the clothes-hanger shown in Figure 1, Figure 3 is the sectional view of the clotheshanger shown in Figure 1 and 2, taken along the line I-I.

Figure 4 is the sectional view of the clotheshanger shown in Figure 1 and 2, taken along the line Il-Il.

An expandable hanger has a pair of arms interconnected by a distance piece 7, subtending an obtuse angle, which each consist of an outer member 1 and an inner member 2. A cross-piece extends between the arms ends of the arms and is also composed of an inner member 3 and an outer member 4.

At each end of the cross-piece there is a hanger hook 5, e.g. for hanging up skirts. A hook 6 for hanging the hanger itself is attached mid-way along the interconnection piece 7.

Stops 8 are provided at the upper ends of the inner arm members 2 which can abut stops 9 located at the lower ends of the outer arm members 1 when the inner and outer members are pulled in opposite directions in orderto prevent them coming apart. Stiff corner-pieces 10 formed at the lower corners of the hanger.

Similarly to the arms, on the end of the inner member 3 of the horizontal cross-piece there is a stop 11, abutable with a stop 12 on the outer member 4 to prevent the inner and outer members coming apart.

The inner and outer members of the two arms and the cross-piece can be repeatedly pushed into each other and drawn apart between two extreme limits and between the maximum and minimum lengths, the hanger can be smoothly expanded or retracted.

The cross-section of the outer members 1 is a Tshaped with a cross-piece at the base of the T. The outer members are disposed within the distance piece 7 and conform to the internal shape thereof.

The upper surface of the T-profile is convex and the corners are rounded-off.

In cross-section the inner members 2 comprise two spaced, mirror image L-profiles between which is held the inner member 1. The inner members also have convex upper surfaces and rounded-off corners and the upper surfaces are disposed beneath those of the outer members and are of the same width as the upper surfaces of outer members. Thus, the inner members 2,3 do not protrude beyond the outer members 1,4 and the uniform width allows clothes to be hung properly, without damage to the material. The inner members 1 become T-shaped near the corner-pieces (as shown in Figure 2) which have convex upper, outer surfaces and are rounded-off. The inner and outer members 3,4 of the cross-piece are similar to those of the arms but of smalier diameter.The inner members 2 of the arms are each joined to a different one of the inner and outer members 3,4 of the cross-piece.

The stops 9 are projections on the ends of the distance piece 7 and stops 11 on the ends of the inner are U-shaped, located on the underneath of the arms. They have a double function. They partly prevent (when under load) the ends of the L-shaped members of the inner members from parting from each other as well as preventing the inner and outer members from coming apart as already mentioned.

Thus, it can be ensured that there is some overlap between the inner and outer members, which will provide stiffness.

The hanger may be made of a synthetic material and where the outer member 1 and the distance piece 7 are injection-moulded as a one-piece element, while the V-shaped units consisting of the inner members 2, corner-pieces 10 and the crosspiece having the inner member 4 and outer member 3 may be also formed in one piece.

This clothes-hanger works as follows.

The hanger may be placed onto some horizontal surface or hung by means of the hanger hook. By holding one corner-piece 10 with one hand and the other with the other hand the inner and outer members 1.2 of each arm are gradually slid apart to the desired extent. Thereafter the item of clothing is placed onto the hanger. If necessary, the size of the clothes-hanger can be subsequently corrected.

Friction between the inner and outer members of the hanger prevents sliding apart of the hanger in a loaded state. Accordingly used is most simple and safe. The size of the clothes-hanger can be optionally adjusted within a wide range, without discrete stages of adjustment. After adjustment unidirectional load as provided by the article of clothing will not alter the hanger.

Thus, the clothes-hanger according to the invention can be set to any predetermined size without discrete intermediate stages and without using any auxiliary means. The dimensions of the hanger, compared to the largest size can be reduced almost to a half. When pulled apart, the hanger is protected against falling apart by the stops.

As a consequence of adjustability without intermediate stages, the hanger does not cause either bulging or stretching. When set to the smallest size, the space occupied is minimal and so it can be economically transported and stored. Hence while travelling, the hanger can be easily placed in a handbag or suitases. It can be produced from diverse materials in an easy manner. It is cheap and lightweight. Produced by injection moulding using a synthetic material, the total weight of a welldesigned hanger of average size is less, than 100 g all types of clothes e.g. a coat, trousers and skirt can be hung onto the hanger. It is suitable for storing children's ladies' wear and men's wear. If under exceptional force part of the hanger has broken, it can be easily and cheaply replaced.

The slidable parts can be made of tubular or Ushaped profiles or any other suitably chosen profiles. The stops can be made in any form, and the shape of the hanger can be varied so as to still have shoulder members.

It should be understood that the scope of this invention is not to be limited except according to the scope of the following claims.

Claims (7)

1. A hanger comprising two connected arms subtending an obtuse angle therebetween and a cross-piece connected between the arm ends, wherein the arms and the cross-piece each comprise at least two telescopic members which are slidable over one another so that the lengths of the arms and the cross-piece are extendable from a minimum to a maximum, and stops for limiting the maximum arm length.

2. A hanger according to claim 1, wherein the outer members of the arms and the cross-piece are substantially T-shaped in cross-section and the inner members have a cross-section comprising two spaced apart L-shaped mirror images, such that the stem portion of the outer member is held within the inner member where the inner and outer members overlap.

3. A hanger according to claim 2, wherein the inner and outer members each have a curved upper face of substantially the same width.

4. A hanger according to claim 1, 2 or 3, wherein the hanger comprises a fi rst V-shaped integral element, formed by the inner member of the crosspiece and the inner member of one arm, a second Vshaped element formed by the inner member of the second arm and the outer member of the crosspiece, and a third V-shaped member formed by the outer members of the arms.

5. A hanger according to claim 1,2,3 or 4, wherein the outer members of the arms are interconnected by a distance piece having a hook attached thereto for hanging up the hanger.

6. A hanger according to any preceding claim, wherein the ends of the outer members are curved so as to provide a substantially smooth join between the inner and outer members of the arms and the cross-piece.

7. A hanger constructed and arranged substantially as herein described with reference to any of the drawings.