Garment hanger attachment

Abstract

A garment hanger attachment having a flexible tube element, a deflectable beam element and a resilient core element for attaching to a variety of garment hangers and effectively lengthening and widening the support area of a garment hanger so as to both inhibit crease and pucker formation in a hanged garment and enable the hanger to support larger and heavier garments than it otherwise could.

Description

BACKGROUND

The present invention generally relates to garment hangers, and it is specifically directed to devices for attaching to hangers in order to prevent unsightly creasing and puckering along the shoulder areas of hanged garments that can occur due to the width or diameter of a hanger's arms being considerably less than the width of human shoulders for which a particular garment is intended (a problem that is exacerbated by increased garment weight) or due to incongruence between the respective lengths of a hanger's arms and a garment's shoulders.

Garment hangers come in a variety of styles and are typically fabricated of either metal wire, plastic or wood. In the dry cleaning industry, for example, cylindrical wire hangers are most often used to mount cleaned garments on because of their relatively low cost of manufacture. Moreover, for simplicity, a dry cleaner will typically use only one size (in terms of wire diameter & shoulder length) of hanger for all of its cleaned garments. However, the proposition of using a single model of hanger to support each of many garments of widely varying masses, shoulder dimensions, and material impressionability can be problematic. For example, it is generally undesirable to use a wire hanger to support a men's suit jacket because the thin diameter of the hanger wire, coupled with the weight of the jacket, may form a crease down the jacket's shoulder. Furthermore, if the hanger arms are shorter than the jacket shoulder length, puckers may be formed in the jacket where the hanger arms end and the jacket abruptly begins hanging down under its own weight and/or the jacket may easily slide off the hanger entirely. To address these and similar hanger-garment incompatibility issues, a plethora of hanger attachment devices have been developed in the prior art.

U.S. Pat. No. 6,053,379 to Balph discloses a hanger sleeve extension comprising a tubular body formed by a hanger engagement portion for sliding over a hanger arm, as well as a sleeve insert portion that extends outward from the engagement portion. In a preferred embodiment, the hanger engagement portion is simply a fabric sleeve with fastening cords at its proximal end, white the sleeve insert portion comprises a fabric-covered, high-density synthetic material that exhibits some degree of rigidity. However, the present inventor recognizes a deficiency in the Balph device with regard to the tedious need for a user to tie each of two attachments' tie cords to the base of the hanger hook (and subsequently untie them when it is necessary to remove the attachments) in order to prevent the attachments from sliding off the hanger as a garment is being removed.

U.S. Pat. No. 6,267,275 to Murray discloses a unitary, elongated, flexible body of resilient foam material, such as flexible polyurethane foam, that features a half-slit running longitudinally along the body and a shorter, longitudinally centered, through-slit. The through-slit allows a hanger hook to protrude up through the body while the resilient material conforms to hanger arms enveloped within the half-slit. In a preferred embodiment, a flocking material covers the resilient foam. The present inventor recognizes, however, that while the Murray device may certainly be effective in preventing the kind of longitudinally oriented creases that a wire hanger might create along the length of a garment shoulder, it still may not prevent the forming of puckers, or even lateral creases, in larger garments having shoulder length dimensions greater than the length of supporting hanger arms. That is because the outer segment of garment shoulder that is not undergirded by hanger arm and/or highly rigid foam material will be left to hang and will abruptly bend downward and form a pucker or lateral crease at the point which that underlying, sufficiently rigid support ends.

If, on the contrary, an embodiment of the Murray device comprises a foam body that is both long enough to extend as far beyond the length of a standard-sized hanger arm as is necessary to span the entire shoulder length of a broad-shouldered, heavy garment and rigid enough to, in fact, support that outer shoulder area of the garment and prevent it from abruptly bending at the point where the hanger arm ends, then that foam body may tend to be too long and inflexible to stow into many suitcases and other travel compartments. So, in the judgment of the present inventor, the Murray device presents an undesirable tension between (a) compatibility with a wide range of garments and (b) efficient storability and/or portability.

U.S. Pat. No. 6,840,413 to Cameron, et al. describes a hanger-mountable device for preventing creases and wrinkles that is formed by an elongate, injection molded article having a cylindrical exterior surface and a length-running opening that leads into a hollow interior which is slightly smaller in diameter than is the hanger arm to which the device is to attach. In some embodiments, this interior hollow space has a cylindrical profile so as to conform to cylindrical wire or plastic hangers, and in other embodiments it has a different profile (e.g., rectangular) for accommodating non-cylindrical profiled hanger arms. Furthermore, in addition to having the appropriate shape, the molded interior space should be precisely dimensioned to snuggly conform to a particular hanger's arms. Consequently, the present inventor recognizes a deficiency in the Cameron device regarding the fact that virtually no single, real embodiment of that device will conformingly secure onto hanger arms of a wide range of diameters and cross-sectional profiles. Rather, a different custom molded unit of the Cameron device may be required for each different specification of hanger.

Consequently, the present inventor appreciates a need for a hanger attachment device that, in view of prior art, is improved relative to its ability to be used with hangers of many different specifications and is effective in supporting, without creasing or puckering, garments of a wide range of shoulder lengths while remaining less bulky and more efficiently storable than are many of its prior art counterparts. The present invention for a hanger attachment device substantially fulfills this need.

SUMMARY

It is an object of the present invention to provide a garment hanger attachment device that effectively widens the contact surface area of a hanger arm and thereby prevents the introduction of shoulder crease impressions into hanged clothes that might otherwise be formed by the smaller diametered hanger arm that the device attaches over.

It is another object of the invention to provide a garment hanger attachment device that, in effect, lengthens a hanger arm and thereby prevents hanged upper body garments having broader shoulder dimensions from developing puckers that the hanger alone might otherwise cause to be formed at a point along the garment shoulder inward of the arm seam due to the garment abruptly bending over at and hanging from the distal end of the insufficiently long hanger arm.

Finally, it is yet another object of the invention to provide a garment hanger attachment device that is rigid enough to support heavier garments (e.g., leather jackets), but is structured so as to enable a single unit of the device to frictionally fit onto hanger arms of a range of cross-sectional profiles (e.g., cylindrical and non-cylindrical) and diameters.

In one aspect of the present invention, the attachment device comprises an elongate, flexibly rigid piece of tubular material that has a longitudinal slit opening that spans some, if not all, of its length. Preferably, the interior and exterior surfaces of this tube are concentrically but they can have other geometric contours within the scope and spirit of the invention. In any event, the tube slit is easily pried further open to receive any conventional wire hanger.

In another aspect of the present invention, disposed within the aforementioned rigid tube and adhesively bonded to its interior surface is a tube of resilient material that features a slit which is aligned with that of the outer tube. Preferably, the interior space within the resilient inner tube has a slightly smaller diameter than a typical wire hanger arm does in order that the resilient material conforms and friction fits around a hanger arm. In fact, the resilient material will do the same around wire hanger arms of a wide range of diameters, as well as non-cylindrically profiled arms.

in another aspect of the invention, a stiffening beam may be disposed within the attachment device in order to prevent the rigid tube from being radically bent downward by the weight of a garment at any point beyond the supporting reach of a hanger arm. Although bendable, such a beam element would be constructed of a material that makes it more rigid than the outer tube in which it is disposed. This renders the attachment more easily flexed by opening forces (in order to receive a hanger arm) than it is downward by the weight of, for example, a relatively heavy, broad-shouldered garment such as a large leather coat.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is an elevational view of a pair of hanger attachment devices in accordance with the present disclosure, the devices being shown mounted to opposing arms of a hanger;

FIG. 2 is a partial elevational view of one of the attachment devices of FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is an exploded, end elevational view of an alternative embodiment of the attachment device;

FIG. 4 is an exploded, end elevational view of a preferred embodiment of the attachment device;

FIG. 5 is an end perspective view of the flexible tube element of the attachment device;

FIG. 6 is an end perspective view of an alternative embodiment of the resilient core element of the attachment device;

FIG. 7 is an end perspective view of preferred embodiments of the resilient core and flexible beam elements of the attachment device; and

FIG. 8 is a cross-sectional, partial elevational view of the attachment device of FIG. 2.

DESCRIPTION OF A PREFERRED EMBODIMENT

Referring now to FIG. 1, there are illustrated two units of the present attachment device 2 mounted to the sloping arms 54 of a typical garment hanger 50. It should be noted that, although FIGS. 1, 2 & 8 depict a molded plastic, closed hanger (“closed” in that it includes a crossbar 56 which forms a triangular enclosure with the two arms 54 that lead downwardly away from its hook 52), the attachment 2 is not limited to use with only hangers constructed of plastic or having a closed configuration. In fact, the present inventor anticipates that the instant device 2 will primarily be mounted to the type of thin gauge wire hangers commonly used by dry cleaning establishments. Nevertheless, as indicated by FIG. 2, the attachment 2 is an elongate device that mounts to the hanger arm 54 throughout an “engagement segment” 4, and it has an “extension segment” 8 which effectively extends the hanger's garment support surface from the length L1 of the hanger arm 54 to the combined length L2 of the hanger arm 54 and attachment extension segment 8. In a preferred embodiment, each of these segments 4, 8 makes up approximately half the length of a straight linear attachment 2—although, the extension segment 8 can be downwardly arcuate, as alternatively indicated in FIGS. 1 & 2.

One embodiment of the attachment 2, which is illustrated in FIG. 3, comprises two components: a flexible outer tube 10 and a resilient core 30 element. However, a preferred embodiment of the attachment 2, as shown in FIG. 4, also comprises a third component: a deflectable beam 40 which is more rigid than the outer tube 10.

Typically, the outer tube 10 is made of a plastic or rubber material that enables the tube 10 to flex and its extension segment 8 to arc [further] downward under a sufficient perpendicular load (e.g., the weight of a men's jacket), but also causes it to substantially rebound back to its original straight [or less arced] posture when the load is removed. As most clearly shown in FIG. 5, the outer tube 10 has a slit opening 14 formed in a bottom portion of it and leading to its central space 16. Preferably, this opening 14 resides in the engagement segment 4, so that that segment 4 can receive a hanger arm 54, but does not extend into the extension segment 8, making the extension segment 8 a complete cylindrical enclosure. However, it should be noted that the slit 14 can extend a greater proportion of outer tube's length, and even its entire length, in alternative embodiments. The tube slit opening 14 is narrow, but it momentarily widens when an opening force is applied to the engagement segment 4 by virtue of pressing through the slit 14 a hanger arm 54 that has a diameter greater than the slit width. Finally, the proximal end 12 of the flexible tube 10 is beveled to make a hanger arm 54 more easily insertable into the engagement segment 4, and its distal end 18 is closed and rounded so as to not form a sharp edge capable of damaging a garment.

It is envisioned that the resilient core 30 will be in the form of a tubular article having a central hole 36, but it is not required that a well-defined hole be formed within it. Nevertheless, tubular embodiments of the core 30 should have an outer surface diameter approximately equal to the inner surface diameter of the flexible outer tube 10, and these two components 10, 30 should be bonded to each other by a thin adhesive not shown) in order to prevent the core tube 30 from sliding out of the outer tube 10. As illustrated in FIGS. 6 & 7, the core tube 30 features a slit opening 34 that is to be aligned with the outer tube slit 14 (see FIGS. 3 & 4) and leads to a central hole 36 within the core 30. The diameter of this core hole 36 should be slightly less than the diameter of the thinnest gauge wire hanger onto which the attachment 2 is anticipated to be mounted. Also, the core tube 30 should be made a highly compressible material—likely some type of foam—so that, once a wider-diametered hanger arm 54 is pressed into the attachment 2, the core material conforms to the hanger arm 54, white the outer tube 10 substantially, if not fully, retains its cylindrical profile (or whatever shape its normal profile may be).

In a preferred embodiment, the core tube 30 also has a recess 38 formed in its top portion to accommodate a cylindrical beam 40 (both shown in FIG. 7) which is thereby sandwiched between the core tube 30 and the outer tube 10 and will be aligned directly over a hanger arm 54. It should be noted that the beam 40 does not have to be cylindrical nor solid in cross-section nor situated directly above the hanger arm 54. For example, it could be a semi-cylindrical element (not shown) that partially encircles the core tube 30 and does not impede opening of the outer tube 10. Regardless of its form, the purpose of this beam element 40 is to increase the rigidity of the overall attachment 2 and allow the plastic outer tube 10 to bend, at the point 58 where the hanger arm 54 ends and beyond, more gradually than it would otherwise tend to under the weight of a garment, but without sacrificing its ability to be pried further open along its bottom slit 14. Therefore, the beam 40 is especially useful for supporting heavier garments.

Aspects of various embodiments of the present invention that are not recited above or claimed below may be noted from observing the illustrations included herein.

Claims

1. An attachment for a garment hanger, the attachment comprising:

a flexible tube having a longitudinal slit opening; and

a resilient core disposed within the flexible tube, wherein the resilient core has a slit opening which is aligned with the flexible tube slit opening.

2. The attachment of claim 1, wherein said flexible tube is defined by a hanger engagement segment that is attachable to a hanger arm and an extension segment that extends from the hanger arm, and wherein the flexible tube slit resides in only the hanger engagement segment.

3. The attachment of claim 2, wherein said hanger engagement segment is straight and said extension segment is arcuate.

4. The attachment of claim 1, wherein said resilient core is tubular.

5. The attachment of claim 1, wherein said flexible tube is made of a plastic material.

6. The attachment of claim 1, wherein said resilient core is made of a foam material.

7. The attachment of claim 1, wherein said resilient core is adhesively bonded to said tube.

8. An attachment for a garment hanger, the attachment comprising:

a flexible tube having a longitudinal slit opening; and

a deflectable beam disposed within the flexible tube, wherein the beam bends less easily than does the flexible tube.

9. The attachment of claim 8, wherein said flexible tube is defined by a hanger engagement segment that is attachable to a hanger arm and an extension segment that extends from the hanger arm, and wherein said deflectable beam extends into both segments.

10. The attachment of claim 8, wherein said flexible tube is made of a plastic material.

11. The attachment of claim 8, wherein said deflectable beam is made of a metal.

12. The attachment of claim 8, further comprising a resilient core disposed within the flexible tube, wherein the resilient core has a slit opening which is aligned with the flexible tube slit opening.

13. The attachment of claim 12, wherein said beam is positioned within a recess formed in said resilient core.

14. The attachment of claim 12, wherein said resilient core is tubular.

15. The attachment of claim 12, wherein said resilient core is made of a foam material.

16. The attachment of claim 12, wherein said resilient core is adhesively bonded to said tube.