US2903169A - Garment hanger - Google Patents

Description

Sept. 8, 1959 J.-R. KEARNEY GARMENT HANGER Filed Oct. 30. 1957 L40 INVENTOR JOHN R. KEARNEY ATTY. I

United States Patent O 2,903,169 GARMENT HANGER John R. Kearney, Wilmette, Ill.

vApplication October 30, 1957, Serial No. 693,359

2 Claims. (Cl. 223-88) The present invention relates to garment hangers and more particularly to garment hangers of the type having means associated therewith whereby a shouldered garment such as a suit coat may be supported in a natural unfolded condition while at the same time a counterpart garment such as trousers or a skirt may be supported in a folded condition. The invention is particularly concerned with a garment hanger of this general type which is formed of one-piece twisted and bent wire construction and which therefore maybe manufactured at a cost so low as to justify its use by commercial garment cleaning establishments as a give-away item to customers for garment transportation and storage purposes.

Conventional garment hangers of the one-piece wire type such as are widely used by tailors and garment clean- :ing establishments almost invariably are in the form of a single length of stiif wire material which has been bent into a planar loophaving the general form of a wide apex isosceles triangle with a hook portion extending upwardly from the principal apex of the triangle. The shoulder portions of a principal garment such as a snit coat are adapted to straddle the hook portion and be supported on the adjacent sides of the triangle 'while the auxiliary counterpart garment, whether it be a trousers, skirt, necktie, belt or the like, is adapted t-o be threaded through the loop and folded over the base of the triangle with the base and its supported garment substantially concealed within and enclosedI by the lapel and vertical edge regions of the principal garment.

Garment hangers of the briefly outlined above are possessed of numerous limitations, principal among which are inadequate aeration of the inner nested counterpart garment; diiculty of withdrawal of the same from the nested combination, particularly if the outer garment is buttoned; concealment of the inner garment by the outer garment so that it is not readily ascertainable as to whether the two garments are matching garments or whether there is, in fact, an inside garment; the inability of the garment hanger conveniently to accommodate the natural sequence of undressing and dressing operations, thus making it necessary to set one of the two counterpart garments aside awaiting application of the other garment to or its removal from the garment hanger dur ing undressing or dressing operations as the case may be; and the mutual distortion `of the two counterpart garments, each by the other, unless extreme care is taken in initially applying the garments to the hanger.

The present invention is designed to overcome the above-noted limitations that are attendant upon the use of conventional one-piece wire garment hangers and, toward this end, it contemplates the provision of a novel Jform of hanger of the one-piece wire variety which embodies the usual hook-suspended, sloping, shoulder-supporting wire lengths on which the principal garment may be hung in conventional fashion, together with an auxiliary horizontal offset garment-supporting portion by means of which a counterpart garment such as a skirt or trousers may be hung .in the usual folded condition with the crease or fold of the garment being coextensively supported throughout by passage therethrough of a straight linear horizontal wire length, the two garments being hung separately, i.e. with the non-shouldered garment being supported wholly outside of the contines of the principal or shouldered garment.

The provision of a novel form of garment hanger of the character briefly outlined above being among the general objects of the invention, it is another object to provide a garment hanger of this sort wherein the offset foldsupporting portion of the hanger is rigidly supported rela-V tive to the shoulder-supporting portions of the hanger at a fairly high elevation which is not appreciably below the normal elevation of the equivalent part of conventional garment hangers so that this portion of the hanger will extend horizontally across the lapel portion of the principal garment in close proximity thereto and expose at least an appreciable area of the folded garment to view, even when a number of the hangers are fully loaded and hanging in close proximity to one another on a horizontal support bar.

Another object of the invention is to provide a onepiece garment hanger ofkthis sort having garment-supporting portions which are maintained substantially rigidly fixed in their respective offset positions while at the same time the medial regions of the length of wire comprising the hanger is devoid of interlocking coils, loops or the like, thus resulting in a wire structure which may be manufactured at a low cost Without necessitating costly shaping operations. Y

Yet another object of the invention is to provide such a garment hanger wherein the extent to which the supporting means for the folded garment is suiciently offset from the supporting means for the shouldered garment that the two garments are maintained entirely separated from but in close proximity to each other so that proper aeration of both garments may take place while at the same time the overall width of the supported garment combination not unduly great.

A still further object of the invention is to provide a one-piece wire garment hanger which, despite the fact that it embodies offset garment supporting means for a counterpart garment in a two-piece garment combination, does not dispense with adequate end reinforcement for the sloping shoulder-supporting portions of the hanger.

Another object iof the invention is to provide such a garment hanger which will give free access to either one of two counterpart garments for the purpose of installation of the garments on the hanger or for the purpose of removal of the garments therefrom and whereby the garments may be so applied to or removed from the hanger with convenience in any desired order.

Other objects and advantages of the invention, not at this time enumerated, will become more readily apparent as the following description ensues.

In the accompanying single sheet of drawings forming a part of this specification a preferred embodiment of the invention has been shown.

In these drawings:

Fig. 1 is a front elevational view of a garment hanger constructed in accordance with the principles of the present invention and showing a two-piece garment combination operatively applied thereto.

Fig. 2 is a front elevational View of the garment hanger with the combination garment removed therefrom. i

Fig. 3 is a side elevational view of the structure shown in Fig. 2, and

Fig. 4 is a sectional view taken substantially along the line 4 4 of Fig. 2.

Referring now to the drawings in detail, in the illustrated form of the invention the garment hanger is formed bfhrelatively stif wire, preferably a single length thereof. The hanger includes a curved hook portion by means of which the hanger may be suspended from a stationary support such as a hook orra horizontal rod in a clothes closet. Immediately below the hook portion 10 one end 4of the length of 'wire joins a medial region thereof in atwis'ted region 12 whereby the ends of a closed nonvplanar'loop 14 are brought together-and fastened.` A'pair of shoulder portions 16 and l13 diverge outwardly and downwardly from the twisted region 12 in the usual manner of forming the shoulder-supporting portions of a conventional wire garment hanger and the extreme distal ends of these shoulder portions are turned or bent inwardlystoward each other as at 20 and 22 in the vertical plane of the shoulder portions 16 and 18 to provide two reentrant- portions 24 and 26 which approach but do not meet each *other land which are turned or bent forwardly as at 2S and 30 (Fig. 4) in a horizontal plane extending at aV right angle to the plane of the wire portions 16, 18, 20, J22,24 and Y26. The horizontally turned portions l28. and 30 merge with a pair of forwardly and outwardly extendingportions 32 and 34 which lie ina horizontal .plane and the .outer ends of the portions 32 and 34 are turned forwardly as at 36 and 38 and merge with a horizontal joining portion 40 in the plane of the portions 32 and 34. i i

IIt will be observed from an inspection of Figs. 2 and 4 that thel geometrical shape produced by bending-and twisting 'ai single wire length into the form described above and illustrated in the drawing produces a support for a shoulderedzgarment such as a suit coat which Yfollows the general'triangular contour of a conventional Vonepiece Wire garment hanger. Since the portions Y24'and 26 of the hanger'which are in alignment do not overlap, interlock, or otherwise project inwardly beyond the vertic al centerline of the hanger, the vertical triangular enclosure formed by the portions 16, 18, 24 and 26 and designated by the reference numeral 14a is open between the reverse'bends 28 and 30 along the base of the triangle and communicates with a second but horizontal triangular portion which has been designated at 1417 which is bounded by the portions 32, 34 and 49, this latter trian- Vgularportion being in the form of a wide angle isosceles triangle which is open at its principal apex. The vertical triangular portion 14a and the horizontal triangular portion 1411 which are in communication with each other constitute the previously mentioned closed loop 14. The straight horizontal wire length 4t) which constitutes the base of the generally triangular enclosure 14b establishes a support for'a folded garment, as for example a skirt or trousers. V

Referring now to Fig. l the downwardly sloping wire lengths 16 and 18 are adapted to be received within the shoulder portions 42 and 44 of a shouldered garment such as the suit coat which has been designated in its entirety at 46, so that the shoulder insides follow the general contour ofthe supporting lengths 16 and 18 in Vthe usual manner of supporting such a garment on any conventional garment hanger. The lapel portions 47 and 48 of Vthe garment 46 extend vertically downwardly and are Vconfined and to some extent restricted between the horizontally extending slightly diverging wire lengths 24, 32 and 26, 34 respectively so that the garment is held in a .generally flat condition. As shown in dotted lines in Fig. l, the two lapel portions 47 and 48 straddle the restricted portion of the garment hanger occasioned by the two reverse bends 28 and 30 in the upper regions of the lapel portions 47 and 48 so that the neck portion 50 of thegarment is held uniformly open at a region Well above the breast portion of the garment. Thus the garment may be buttoned as indicated at 52 if desired, or it may be-left unbuttoned, in which latter case the restraining portions 24, 32 and 26, 34 will to some extent frictionally prevent theA garment from slipping olf-the shoulderrportions 16 and 18.

As previously stated, the horizontal wire length 40 vis adapted to 'have folded thereover a counterpart garment such as the trousers designated at 60 in Fig. 1. If desired however the wire length 40 may accommodate the positioning thereover of a folded skirt or the like. In the application of the counterpart garment 60 to the garment hanger, the same may be threaded, so to speak, through the generally triangular enclosure 14b and brought to a position of .approximately equal mass on opposite `sides of the Ywire length 40 and then straightened on the wire length 40 inthe usual'manner of positioning such a garment on the horizontal bar .portion of a conventional garment* hanger. Although the trousers 60 have been illustrated as being positioned on the wire length 40 with the leg portion 62 thereof disposed outwardly of the waist portion 64, and interposed between the leg portion 62 and garment 46, it is obvious that the position of the trousers 60, skirt or other Yfolded counterpart garment maybe reversed.

-It -is to be ynoted that the transverse width of the `garment supporting wire length 40 is somewhat less than the overall transverse extent of the shoulder supporting portions 16 andlS, the extent of the portion 40 being only -that necessary to accommodate the width of the folded counterpart garment 60. By such an arrangement no appreciable amount of excess wire material over that required for the construction of conventional garment hangers is required -in the manufacture of the present .garment hanger. The amount of offset of the wire length 40 -from the vertical plane of the two shoulder portions -16 anda-18 of the present garment hanger is not great as'may Vbe seen Vin Fig. 3, yetitis of sufcient extent that "the -counterpart garment 60 stands off, `so to speak, slightly from the principal garment 46 for purposes of aeration as previously described as well as -to facilitate positioning of the garments 46 and 60 on the hanger in any desired order of application. However the overall thickness of any `garment combination which may be applied to `the hanger is relatively small and thus a comparatively 'large number of the hangers to which such combination garments have been applied, may be accommodated -in alrelatively small space with the hook portion 10 thereof supported on a conventional horizontal supporting bar -or the like.

In compliance with Title 35, U.S. Code, Section 22, a preferred form of the invention has been shown in the drawings `and described herein, but it should be under- Astood that the invention is not limited to the specific disclosure made, and that the appended claims should be construed as broadly as the prior art will permit.

Having thus described the invention, what I claim and desire to secure by Letters Patent is:

1.A A one-piece wire garment hanger comprising a single length of wire material provided with a supporting hook at one end and having its other end joined to the base region of said hook, thus providing a closed wire loop, said loop including rst and second wire enclosures in open communication with each other through a narrow restricted portion, said iirst enclosure being in the form of va wire frame lying in a vertical plane and having the general configuration ofa wide angle isosceles triangle including equal downwardly sloping sides and an interrupted horizontal base provided by inturned aligned reentrant portions at the lower ends of the sloping sides, said second wire enclosure being in the form of a wire frame lying in a horizontal plane and likewiserhaving the general configuration of a wide angle truncated isosceles triangle including equal sides which are inclined at a slight angle to said interrupted base and which are connected to the adjacent ends of said reentrant portions of the interruptedrbase by respective reverse bends and a continuous base lying in the horizontal plane of said interrupted base, the downwardly sloping sides of the -frameportion of the first wire enclosure being adapted to receive nthereover-the shoulder Vportions of ashouldered garment and the base of the frame portion of the second wire enclosure being adapted to receive thereover a folded counterpart garment.

2. A one-piece Wire garment hanger according to claim 1 and wherein said other end of the wire length s joined to the base region of said hook portion by interlocking helices.

References Cited in the le of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS Cuscaden July 19, 1932 Russell et al Feb. 20, 1940 Waldman Sept. 21, 1948 Durr Oct. 28, 1952

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