US3516126A - Garment hanger coupling - Google Patents

Description

June 23, 1910 BERKW'TS GARMENT HANGER COUPLING 2 Shets-Sheet 1 Filed Oct; 30, 1968 June 23, 1970 A. BERKOVITS GARMENT HANGER COUPLING 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 :Filed Oct. 50, 1968 lA/VEA/TO? United States Patent 3,516,126 GARMENT HANGER COUPLING Abe Berkovits, 4864 N. Shoreland, Whitefish Bay, Wis. 53217 Filed Oct. 30, 1968, Ser. No. 771,867 Int. Cl. A41j 51/08 US. CI. 24-84 6 Claims ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE A clasp that couples an auxiliary clothes hanger to a primary clothes hanger. The clasp and the auxiliary hanger may be clipped and unclipped onto a garment hanger to form a composite garment hanger. Therefore one composite garment hanger is able to keep a set of clothes together such as a womans blouse and matching skirt or a mans suit coat and matching trousers. The auxiliary hanger may be rotatably mounted on the clasp.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION This invention relates to a device whereby matching clothing garments may be kept together on the same composite garment hanger. More specifically, this invention relates to a clasp that couples an auxiliary garment hanger to a primary garment hanger. The clasp retaining the auxiliary hanger can be clipped and unclipped from the primary garment hanger.

The modern garment industry has always manufactured clothes in sets to meet the styling requirements of the time. Although styles change over the years, the basic demand for clothing in sets has not changed. Examples of such sets of clothing are mens suits wherein the coat and pants are made from the same fabric, womens suits wherein the skirt and jacket are made from the same fabric, womens slack suits, womens matching shorts and blouse, womens play suits, womens lounging suits, etc. As a consequence thereof, there has been a need for a single garment hanger capable of simultaneously hanging a set of clothes. There have been many attempts to make such a garment hanger, some meeting with success and others with failure. In recent years a plastic garment hanger, as shown in FIG. 1, was introduced to the market. This plastic hanger 10 has a rotatable hanging hook 11, arms 12, and auxiliary clothes loops 13. The arms 12 hold one garment such as a jacket, blouse, coat, etc. The auxiliary clothes loops 13 are utilized to hold additional or matching clothing such as a skirt, shorts, pants, etc. However, in order to use the auxiliary loops 13, these specific loops must be sewn into the colthing. Rarely are the sewn auxiliary loops placed correctly so that the garment will hang smoothly from the hanger. This discrepancy may be caused by a variety of dimensions among manufactured plastic hangers of this type. Furthermore, sewing these hanging loops into such clothing increases the manufacturers cost thereof. When an inexpeensive piece of clothing is made, the extra cost of sewing hanging loops therein is not justified and therefore the loops are not added to the garment. As a consequence of not adding the hanging loops to the clothing, a hanger is required for each piece of clothing in the set. In many instances the difierent types of clothing making up a set required different shaped hangers. The standard wire type garment hanger (not shown) is well suited for holding shirts and the like but is unsatisfactory when such a Wire hanger is used to hold womens shorts, for example. The garment shown in FIG. 2 is more suited to hold such items of clothing as womens shorts wherein the alligator clips are operationally secured to the wire hanger 14 frame. This type of garment hanger also has a hook 11 used for holding the ice hanger on any number of types of clothes racks. Attempts have been made to fasten the hanger of FIG. 2 onto the hanger of FIG. 1 but such attempts have proven either economically expensive or otherwise impractical.

The retail clothing establishment is user and consumer, having a large demand for composite garment hangers because in the displaying for sale of garment sets, usually only one of the garments is fully tagged concerning price, size, etc. Without using a composite hanger, these retailers would have a never-ending conglomeration of mixed sizes, styles, etc. wherein their inventory would be forever comingled.

In one attempt to make a composite garment hanger, an auxiliary hanger 14, as shown in FIG. 2A (which is identical to the hanger 14 of FIG. 2 except for the hook 11) was permanently attached to a primary hanger such as the hanger shown in FIG. 1. In this construction, the primary hanger 10 was made from plastic and was relatively cheap whereas the auxiliary hanger was made from metal, being about ten times as expensive as the plastic hanger and much more durable. It has been found that the plastic hanger breaks easily resulting in the whole combination being unusable and thereafter thrown away. Therefore, this invention solves the need for a combination garment hanger wherein the expensive auxiliary hanger can be easily clipped to a plastic hanger, unclipped when the plastic hanger is broken and reclipped to another inexpensive unbroken plastic hanger.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION A general object of the present invention is to provide a coupling means to secure an auxiliary hanger to a primary garment hanger.

A more specific object of the present invention is to provide a clasp that has an auxiliary garment hanger mounted thereon with the clasp shaped so that it can be clipped and unclipped from a primary garment hanger.

Another object of the present invention is to provide such a clasp wherein the upper and lower clips of the clasp are resilient.

Still another object of the present invention is to pro vide a clasp wherein the auxiliary hanger mounted thereon is rotatable.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS Additional objects and advantages of the present invention will become apparent as revealed in the following description when taken in connection with the accompanying drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 is an elevation view of a primary garment hanger.

FIG. 2 is an elevation view of an auxiliary garment hanger.

FIG. 2A is an elevation view of an auxiliary hanger.

FIG. 3 is a perspective View of the clasp with an auxiliary hanger.

FIG. 4 is a perspective section view of a modification of the clasp of FIG. 3.

FIG. 5 is an elevation view of the clasp coupling the auxiliary hanger to the primary garment hanger.

FIG. 6 is a section view of the primary hanger, the clasp and part of the auxiliary hanger.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Referring to FIG. 1, the primary garment hanger 10 is representative of only one type of many garment hangers. The hanger 10 has a midsection 16 that has a width dimen sion represented by B. One illustrative embodiment of the clasp 20 of this invention is shown in FIG. 3. The clasp 20 may be made from a wide variety of materials such as sheet metal. The clasp 20 has at least one deformed retainer 21 that is formed around an auxiliary hanger 14 in order to secure the hanger section 22 to the clasp 20. The retainers 21 are formed around hanger section 22 permitting the hanger section to freely rotate therein. I1- lustratively, in another embodiment of the invention, as shown in FIG. 4, the retainers 21 have holes 30 therein used to receive the auxiliary hanger section 22.

The clasp 20 has at the upper end thereof, in a preferred embodiment, an upper clip 23 having two pronged tips 24 and cutout section 25 forming a forked shaped arrangement as part of clasp 20. The tips 24 are designed to fit over the top 17 of the midsection 16 of hanger The clips 23 are connected substantially perpendicular to the clasp 20 when the clasp 20 is designed to fit over a hanger midsection 16 as shown in FIG. 6.

The lower clip arm 26 is substantially perpendicularly attached to the clasp 20. The clip arm 26 has an end tip 27 that is substantially bent upward and then downward. The distance D as shown in FIG. 3 is the internal dimension between the upper clip 23 and the lower clip 26. The lower clip 26 is resilient, similar to a leaf spring, so that the upper prong clip 23 fits over the top 17 of the midsection 17 of a hanger, the lower clip 27 can be urged over the bottom 18 of the midsection 17 so that the clasp 20 is firmly secured to the hanger 10. The resiliency of the lower arm 26 permits the clasp 20 to be clipped, unclipped and clipped again to the hanger 10. The dimension D is slightly larger than the dimension B so that the clasp 20 will fit over the hanger midsection 16.

With an auxiliary hanger 14 rotatably secured to the clasp 20 and in turn, the clasp 20 clipped to the hanger 10, the clasp 20 couples the auxiliary hanger 14 to the primary hanger 10, making the composite longer as shown in FIG. 5. The clips on the auxiliary hanger 14 may hold an article of clothing such as pants while the arms 12 of the hanger 10 hold a coat.

Illustratively in another embodiment of the invention as shown in FIG. 4, the upper clip 23' has a hole 29 so that the hook 11 of the hanger 10 passes through the hole 29 securing the upper clip 23' to the hanger 10. The upper clip 23 cooperates with the resilient lower clip 26 to secure the clasp the hanger 10 similar to the manner in which the upper clip 23 cooperates with the lower clip 26 to secure that embodiment of the invention to the hanger 10. 7

When the cheap plastic hanger 10 breaks, the clasp 20 and the auxiliary hanger 14 may be unclipped therefrom and reclipped to another plastic hanger 10. Thus, this invention provides an economical method for making new composite hangers by having to replace only the cheap component when it breaks rather than replacing the old composite which is the only known arrangement currently available.

The invention contemplates that there are many different shapes of clasps necessary to secure diiferent designs of auxiliary hangers to the many different midsection configurations of primary hangers.

From the foregoing description, it will be apparent that the present invention provides a clasp that is capable of coupling an auxiliary hanger to a primary hanger. The

' clasp provides the added advantage of being able to clip and unclip the auxiliary hanger to the primary hanger.

Thus, while I have illustrated herein several preferred embodiments of my invention, and that different shapes of primary hangers will necessitate modifications of the clasp, it is understood that changes and variations may be made by those skilled in the art without departing from the spirit and scope of the appended claims.

I claim:

1. A clasp for coupling an auxiliary hanger to a garment hanger, comprising:

a body having an upper end and a lower end;

a retainer secured to said body and extending therefrom in a first direction, said auxiliary hanger mounted on said retainer and secured thereto; and

resilient gripping means extending in a second direction secured to said upper end and lower end permitting alternately the clipping and unclipping of said body to said garment hanger.

2. The clasp as recited in claim 1, wherein the upper gripping means comprises:

a clip having forked prongs substantially perpendicular to said body and secured thereto, said prongs having tips bent toward the lower end of said body forming a U-shaped configuration.

3. A clasp as recited in claim 1, wherein the lower gripping means comprises:

a clip arm substantially perpendicular to said body and attached thereto, said arm having the end bent upwardly and the tip thereof bent downwardly.

4. A clasp as recited in claim 1 wherein said retainer is U-shaped.

5. A clasp as recited in claim 4, wherein said auxiliary hanger is aflixed to said body by means of deforming said retainer around said auxiliary hanger to prevent said auxiliary hanger from being detached from said body.

6. A clasp as recited in claim 1, with said primary hanger having a hook, wherein said upper gripping means comprises:

a clip substantially perpendicular to said body having an opening therein to receive said hook.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,580,839 4/1926 McKenna. 2,364,883 12/1944 Wahl 223-88 2,629,575 2/ 1953 Loyot et a1. 2,753,143 7/ 1956 Berlt 248--317 FOREIGN PATENTS 959,780 10/ 1949 France. 803,754 10/ 1958 Great Britain.

DONALD A. GRIFFIN, Primary Examiner US. Cl; X.R.

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