![]() Their most enduring pop culture moment came in a disturbing and class-conscious depiction of child abuse, when Faye Dunaway famously shrieked “NO. Of course, it doesn’t help that wire hangers are not particularly good at being hangers, often warping delicate garments that drape from them unevenly, nor that they are still the go-to symbol of illegal abortions in America’s pre-Roe dark days. It is wire hangers’ very ubiquity that may have helped damn them to dangle from the lowest rung on the hanger hierarchy. Upward of 80 percent of US wire hanger consumption comes via dry cleaners (uniform rental services comprise much of the rest), which employ wire hangers as a means of garment storage and transport so cost-effective they are included with their services. A 2007 study by the US International Trade Commission estimated US consumption at 3.3 billion wire hangers annually, or nearly 11 per capita at the time - a figure that does not even account for the wire hangers often included with “floor-ready” garments imported from overseas, as long required by major retailers like Macy’s and Lord and Taylor. Therein lies the unusual status of the wire hanger: an inescapable part of modern life to which everyone can relate but no one pays much attention. “I mean, who ever gave a moment’s thought to a hanger?” “The whole thing was funny,” Maresca says. The mailman dropped off entire canvas sacks of letters from citizens the world over who hoped to convert their own closets into cultural cachet and/or cash.Īn inescapable part of modern life to which everyone can relate but no one pays much attention ![]() Daily foot traffic increased into the hundreds. Soon the office fax machine was spitting out messages until they flooded onto the floor. Within a few days, thanks to, ahem, wire services picking up the story, the exhibit went the print-era equivalent of viral. Soon Maresca had an exhibit (“Out of the Closet: American Hangers”) and an accompanying write-up in the New York Times. Maresca, whose Ricco/Maresca Gallery is known for showcasing contemporary outsider art, mounted one of Diamant’s wire hangers on the white gallery wall. His friend and artist-collector Harris Diamant offered an unexpected solution: his extensive reserve of vintage clothes hangers. He needed a “throwaway show” for his New York City gallery - something simple and easy to occupy a fallow period on the calendar. In the early 1990s, art dealer Frank Maresca had the unusual experience of such a collection being a sort of godsend. ![]() And, also like many Americans, you probably came to your stockpile unwittingly - largely through trips to the dry cleaner - and are familiar with the fit of frustration that comes from opening your closet to find these forgotten objects somehow entangled in a metal mare’s nest. If you are like many Americans, you likely own or have owned a small collection of the billions (with a b) of wire hangers that are consumed in the US every year.
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