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Q&A

Q & A: Episode 12 | Hangers

Q & A 12 | Hangers

In this video, Kirby Allison replies to several of the questions and comments asked by our YouTube Audience with a theme of Hangers. We love hearing back from our customers and audience and shortly after this video airs, we will attempt to reach out to all commenters featured in this video with a complimentary pair of our Sovereign Grade dress shoe laces. If your question or comment was featured in this video and you have not heard from us, please message us directly on YouTube.

Transcription

Hi, I'm Kirby Allison and we love helping the well-dressed take care of their wardrobes. Thank you for all your comments and questions that you guys have posted on our YouTube channel. After reading them all and answering as many as possible, I've selected five that we are gonna feature in today's Q&A; video. Each of these individuals I have selected will receive a complimentary pair of our sovereign grade shoelaces as a token of our appreciation for their participation in our channel. In today's Q&A; video we're gonna talk about a very important but often overlooked subject in a lot of our YouTube videos which is hangers.

Our first question today is from Dejaun McGuire and it reads, "I assume from the company name that you got into business with hangers. Can you please share the story about The Hanger Project's beginnings? Dejuan, great question. You're right. The Hanger Project of course you know initially began as a project to create the best hangers. Now I'd always been fascinated with high-end menswear, really not fashion but really more of the quality and the craftsmanship behind it. So I just graduated college and I took all my graduation money and bought my first bespoke suit and it was delivered with this incredibly flimsy plastic hanger. And it just seemed like a shame. I mean here was this garment made from a fine wool fabric that someone had spent you know 60 or 70 hours to make and it just came on this generic flimsy plastic hanger that did nothing to really take care of the garment. And so that was really the genesis behind the idea of The Hanger Project and so you and I just started my first job you know I had plenty of time on my hands because you know I was you know totally new at the company. And so I was on the internet. I was on you know Ask Andy About Clothes and I really kind of just complaining about how terrible this hanger was and asking where I could find a better hanger and to my surprise you know a lot of the people on Ask Andy you know really jumped on this thread and started you know kind of complaining about how impossible it was for them to even find high quality hangers. And so I proposed to the group I said look you know I just graduated college. I've got a time but no money. I can go out and see about having the best wooden hanger made for us, but you guys are gonna have to pay a hundred percent cash advance. And so The Hanger Project literally started as "The Hanger Project." It was simply a project to see if we could have made for us the best wooden hanger in the world. So it's hard to believe that it's been 10 years and it's exciting because you know we've got our own warehouse now. You know we've got 10 employees. You know we're really growing and expanding and I couldn't be more excited about the next 10 years as I was about the last 10 years. So Dejaun, thanks for your question. We appreciate your business and I look forward to sending you a pair of our sovereign grade shoelaces.

Our second question today is from Josh Maley and it reads, "Hello Kirby, do you recommend using different types of wood or wood finishes for different clothing fabrics? I E should you use a hanger with a dark finish for a darker fabric or a lighter hanger for a lighter fabric? Just not sure if the finish would wear off on the clothing or if that's only a problem that you'd have to worry about with the lower quality hangers." Josh, thank you for your question. So here at The Hanger Project we do have three standard finishes. We have our Alfred finish, which is kind of a darker wood with a satin finish, chrome hardware, black flocking. We have our traditional finish, which was our first and longest standing finish which is kind of a cherry wood with a high gloss finish, brass hardware and brown flocking. And of course we've got our maple wood finish hanger which is made from a beautiful natural maple wood with a satin finish, chrome hardware and black flocking. A beautiful hanger. One of my favorite finishes. You know these finishes really are more aesthetic than anything else. All of our hangers are fully sealed so you don't have to worry about the finish ever coming off onto the hanger and really one's choice of finish really is more aesthetic than anything else. You know it's just whatever people are really drawn to. So it's either you know they love the natural kind of buttery wood grain that you get in our maple wood or someone wants something more traditional or maybe one finish matches the finish of their closet better than other. And so that's really how most people choose to finish of their hanger. Now of course all of our hangers are available in multiple sizes and that is really the biggest differentiation of our hangers is that you know one size doesn't fit all whenever it comes to your clothing. The same should absolutely be true whenever it comes to your hangers. And that's why here at The Hanger Project we have four sizes to our suit hangers and to our shirt hangers, to really ensure that you can tailor the fit of your hangers to precisely match the size of your garments. The size of the hanger really can't be overstated in terms of how important it is. You know your garments live and die in the closet and so how well you take care of them on the hanger really determines how well you're taking care of a garment. So this is my suit jacket on a 15 and a half inch hanger. This is our small hanger. And you can see the hanger extends perfectly to the edge of the sleeve without extending past the shoulder into the sleeve head. Now the reason you don't want this to happen is one, if you're putting your hanger or if you're putting your garment into your closet and you hit the wall you can actually damage your fabric by pinching it in between and the edge of the hanger in the wall. The second thing is you can see how this disrupts the drape of the sleeve, right. So if you leave this hanging in your closet long enough and then you pull your jacket out you're gonna have a little bump right here you know where that you know you know the protrusion of the hanger really has been kind of put into the memory of the fabric. Now the opposite of this is a hanger that let's say is too small, right. So say you're a 44 and you're just using a 17 inch hanger and the edge of your shoulder extends and falls off the hanger. Well then all of a sudden you have the weight of the jacket you know really pulling down right here. You know this is what causes shoulder pads to collapse and then you pull your jacket off the hanger and then you know you'll see guys you know wearing jackets where you know this is no longer smooth and there's a lump. And again that's because of a hanger that was too narrow. So it's important to remember that suit jackets are constructed to really hang from the shoulders. I mean all the work that goes into a jacket is the collar and the shoulders. And so if you have a hanger that is too small or too wide or too skinny or doesn't have a natural contour that kind of really mimics the forward stance of your shoulders, you can really ruin all the work that goes into a jacket. So you know as I always say you know a hanger is like a shoe tree for suits. I couldn't possibly overstate the importance of a well fitting properly constructed hanger. Thanks Josh for your question. I look forward to seeing you a pair of our sovereign grade shoelaces.

Our third question today is from Derek Chan and it reads, "How do you balance giving clothes enough room to breathe while also maximizing your closet space?" So Derek, a great question. I mean the you know the the honest answer is that you really can't. I mean you can try your best to balance you know giving your garments enough room without jamming them in. But you know as my rule of thumb how I approach it is you know for one if you're using a two and a half inch shoulder flare like what we have you know the garments are going to kind of naturally space themselves out. Now I don't have you know one or two inches of room in between each of my suits. You know I put them together so that you know they're close enough you know probably touching a little bit, but I don't have them jammed into my closet. And so that's really what you want to avoid. You want to avoid you know jamming your suits into your closet so that you're really you know you know pushing them in. So having two inches of space in between each suit is you know certainly going to for in all honestly totally unnecessary. So Derek one of the things that we did develop here at The Hanger Project to combat this problem of closet storage space is something that we call our travel hanger, but it could just as easily be called our New Yorker because this hanger was developed almost specifically to combat the problem that you're speaking of which is you know closet storage space in small closets. So this hanger again is available in four sizes just like all of our hangers. It's built to the same quality specifications. Belted trouser bar. It's fully contoured. But instead of a two and a half inch shoulder flare we have a 3/4 inch shoulder flare. So is it offering as much support to a suit jacket as the two and a half inch shoulder flare of our luxury suit hanger? You know of course not. But if you're someone with the smaller closet that's really struggling to fit everything in, this is your next best option. So it's still gonna offer some support. It's contoured. It's available in four sizes so you can get the proper fit. But it is going to be much more efficient on the amount of closet space. Now if you have the closet space of course I would always recommend that you use our luxury suit hanger, but if you're someone that lives in New York or Chicago or just has a small closet and is struggling to fit all your garments in you can use a hanger like our travel hanger. Now one of the other things we have speaking of efficient closet space is a lot of people don't realize that our felted trouser bar is actually a very efficient hanger. Now the reason the felted trouser bar is so efficient is you know if you're not using a felted trouser bar hanger to hang your suit trousers then you're probably just using a normal kind of spare suit hanger. So look at how much lower your trousers hang on a traditional suit hanger than our felted trouser bar. I mean this is what you know four inches and so for your odd trousers or for trousers you're hanging alone using a felted trouser bar allows you to use a double rod system in a traditional closet versus something like you know traditional suit hanger which is going to make it difficult to use a double rod space for your trousers. So our felted trouser bar hanger is really one of my favorite hangers. You know the story behind this hanger is whenever I'd first started The Hanger Project we were making these incredible suit hangers. I walked into my closet one day and at that time I was using dry-cleaning hangers for all my trousers. Which as you all know have the cardboard little trouser bar and if you leave that hanger in your closet long enough it starts the bow and so I walk into my closet and I looked at this you know trouser hanger this dry cleaners hanger smiling at me and I said you know we've got to do something for our trousers also. And so that was the idea for our felted trouser bar hanger. It's one of our most popular hangers. The felted trouser bar allows trousers to gently drape over the bar. There's no pressure being put onto the trouser. Completely eliminates creasing that's caused by locking bar mechanism. So one of the other things that's surprising is even without the locking bar the friction between the felt and the fabric of the trousers actually does a better job to secure the trousers and eliminates slippage. You know I travel exclusively with you know my luxury suit hanger and I've never once had a pair of trousers slide off the hanger into the bottom of my garment bag or even for that matter to the bottom of my closet. Thanks Derek for your question. I look forward to sending you a pair of our sovereign grade shoelaces.

Our next question today is from Paul Owens and it reads, "I was just given a very high-quality lambskin leather jacket for Christmas and from what I read they say to hang it on a padded hanger to protect the delicate leather. Is that true? Or would a suit hanger from you be better for this coat? I also was given a suede and shearling car coat. Would a suit hanger work for that coat? These are both way nicer than I can afford to replace so I'd like to keep them protected. Any advice is welcome." Paul you know congratulations it sounds like you got some great Christmas gifts there. And absolutely, so a padded hanger you know we don't sell padded hangers here at The Hanger Project. We've all seen them. They're most commonly associated with women's lingerie and the padded hanger really has no functional benefit to the padding. It's never something that I would ever use. We don't even sell it here because there's really just no functional value behind a padded hanger. But what you're alluding to and what I think that the manufacturer was speaking to is that any heavy garment, especially like a leather jacket which are very heavy or an overcoat, it's important for the weight of that jacket to be distributed across as large of a surface area as possible and the entire surface area of the hanger. And so our two and a half inch shoulder flare which is the largest shoulder flare that you can find you know it offers five times more support than your traditional jacket hanger that you would find at the department store is going to do the best job possible to support that jacket. One of the things that I also point out and recommend is that oftentimes casual jackets would require a slightly larger suit hanger than what you would buy for your suit jackets because normally they're cut slightly larger. So I'd say you know take a look and measure the jacket and you know if you're someone like me that has a fifteen and a half inch suit hanger for your suits, you know you might actually require or benefit from a 17 inch hanger you know for something like a casual jacket or an overcoat. And Paul I mean your intuition is absolutely correct that a proper hanger will protect and extend the life of that jacket. And so absolutely you know spend a little bit of money, invest in a nice hanger. In 10 or 20 years you'll be thankful you did that. We really appreciate your participation on this YouTube channel and I look forward to sending you a pair of our sovereign grade shoelaces.

Our last question today is from Zach Traver and it reads, "Is the finish of the Alfred color durable? The gloss finish used for the traditional color would handle the wear and tear of pulling a hanger in and out of the closet and the occasional bumping or clacking into one another, but I'm curious about the Alfred finish option (I prefer darker coloring). The reason I ask is that the hanger finish on the other brand has started to flake after very minor few weeks of use. Was curious about whether I should try the Alfred finish with Hanger Project or just give up and go for a gloss finish on the traditional option. Let me know and you have a new customer coming your way." So Zach, I love questions like this. Our Alfred finished is just as durable as our traditional finish hanger. Although it's a satin finish, it doesn't mean that we're using a lower quality finish on the hanger. And we actually use something that is called a PU-2 or it's basically a double application of our finish that is traditionally reserved just for retail hangers specifically to give all the finish on all of our hangers more durability. The Alfred finish hanger Zach has become one of our most popular finishes because it is very elegant and so you know I can unequivocally recommend this and say that you wouldn't experience any problems with the finish in this hanger. Zach, you know thanks for considering The Hanger Project. We'd love to have you as a customer and take care of you. And you know if you place an order with us we'll include your sovereign great shoelaces in that order or we're happy to just send them to you direct.

So while we're talking about hangers there's two hangers that I didn't have an opportunity to discuss on this video that I'd like to mention that are very important. The first is our luxury shirt hanger. Now again you know most of the problems that you experience with the shirt are by virtue of the fact that the hanger wasn't wide enough. So shirt mountains or shirt dimpling, that is caused exclusively because a hanger is not wide enough and extending all the way to the edge of the shoulder. So of course here at The Hanger Project we've got an incredible shirt hanger. Most importantly it's available in three to four sizes and of course each of our finishes. So a lot of people ask you know why would I have a luxury shirt hanger? You know certainly you know your standard wire hanger might be fine you know for your dress shirts that have a tighter weave, but anything that has a softer weave, like a polo shirt or a more casual shirt is really prone to the damage that is caused by a hanger being too narrow. And so those absolutely need a properly fitting hanger. And then personally I just find something just really nice and there's just something you know really visually appealing about that. And so for those of you that saw my closet tour video, I do take the time to switch all of my dry cleaning hangers out. Now the other hanger that we haven't spoken about yet is our luxury sweater and polo hanger. This hanger was developed specifically at the request of a customer that was very persistent about wanting to be able to hang his soft knit sweaters in season in his closet without having to worry about them stretching. And so we developed the first luxury sweater hanger that you know really anyone's ever marketed. Now what this hanger offers is a slight kind of moderate contour and then a 3/4 inch shoulder flare to offer more support. And then most importantly what we added is the flocking at the edge of the shoulder. And what that does is it prevents the sweater from sliding down the hanger and further controls that edge to prevent any type of shoulder puckering or stretching to occur. And of course like with all of our hangers this is available in four sizes to allow you to perfectly tailor the size of your hanger to your sweaters.

You know once again I'd like to take a moment to thank everyone for their comments and questions. It's your engagement on our youtube channel that make these Q&A; videos possible. Not only does it give me an opportunity to answer in greater depth a lot of the questions that I'm already answering when you ask them in the comments section, but it also allows us to just take a moment to express our appreciation for you being a part of our channel. I have absolutely enjoyed what this platform has allowed me to do especially in how it is allowed me to connect with you guys much more frequently and much more closely. If you haven't taken an opportunity to ask a question or make a comment on our channel, I invite you to do so. Even if you don't have any questions to ask, just sharing your opinions or your thoughts about our content helps me make better videos in the future.

In today's video I'm wearing a bespoke Chris Despos suit. This is a tan suit that I really enjoy for the summer time. I have of course my trademark white shirt, but today's shirt is a little bit different. It's not a charvet shirt. It's one of my Turnbull & Asser shirts that I've had made. And you can tell that the collar is completely different. This is the traditional TNA collar. A much higher stance especially in the front and the points are more narrow than my wide spread that I have on my charvet shirts. It's a great collar. One that really frames my neck nicely and one that I enjoy wearing. I'm wearing a blue silk tie and then a Simonnot Godard opera pocket square. The trousers I'm wearing today have a single, reverse pleat tab adjusters and then have no turn ups which I prefer for my more formal suits. And then I'm wearing a pair of my bespoke George Cleverley Baron De Rede pigskin loafers. These are actually the first pair of Baron de Rede's that they made for me. I'm wearing a pair of our green, sovereign grade socks. You know the shirt has our horn collar stays. Especially with the long collar it's important to have a collar stays to really help control and straighten the collar. These are the two and three-quarter inch collar stays. Very long. Perfect for this TNA collar. And today I'm wearing my Chopard gold perpetual calendar watch and I put one of my Jean Rousseau brown watch straps on which matches this garment perfectly.

If you enjoyed this video give us a thumbs up and please subscribe to our channel and turn on your notifications by clicking the bell to the right of the subscribe button so that you can learn whenever we release new videos. If you have any questions or comments about anything we discussed on this video, please ask them in the comment section below. And of course please visit hangarproject.com where we have the largest most comprehensive collection of luxury garment care and shoe care accessories in the world, as well as, many other incredible products for the well-dressed. And while you are there subscribe to our newsletter to receive notifications of new product launches, promotions, as well as, a weekly digest of all the videos we publish here on our YouTube channel. I'm Kirby Allison and we love helping the well-dressed take care of their wardrobes. Thanks for joining me.