Wooden hangers - natural and sustainable
Wooden clothes hangers - the sustainable choice for your wardrobe
Wooden clothes hangers are high-quality and environmentally friendly - we make them exclusively from FSC®-certified wood.
Why do you need clothes hangers?
Good clothes hangers fulfil many functions. They enable clothing shops to present fashion in an attractive way, they help you to keep your wardrobe tidy and they support your sustainable lifestyle:
Your coats, blouses and trousers keep their shape and are protected when you hang them on the right hanger.
Wooden clothes hangers are therefore part of textile care and a contribution to environmental protection - especially if they are made from sustainably grown, certified wood, as we do.
From classic suit hangers in beech to coat hangers, trouser hangers and skirt hangers to clothes hangers with a ribbed bar or a moulded hanger with a wider shoulder: at MAWA you will find a selection of around fifty different wooden hangers made from beech and ash wood - natural, stained, waxed or with an environmentally friendly water-based finish. Contact us now for prices & further information.
Our classic clothes hangers are shaped so that blouses, shirts, jackets and dresses hang perfectly. The rounded shape supports the shoulder area (ciao clothes bulge!). And thanks to the notch in the skirt, you can hang your entire outfit.
Another practical feature: all hangers have the same "hanging height" - this keeps your wardrobe organised.
How long have wooden clothes hangers been around?
A few years ago, we did some research for our company chronicle to find out how long hangers have been around in the world.
What we found is interesting: six hundred years ago, in 1425, a certain Lorenz Schneider was depicted with a hanger.
Around 250 years ago, the first ready-to-wear company was founded in Paris, i.e. a company that mass-produced clothing.
Just like the first textile shops, these companies naturally wanted to present their clothes well and were therefore important customers for hangers and other hanging options.
In 1836, almost two hundred years ago, coats were mass-produced for the first time - in Berlin. Thirty years later, wooden coat hangers can also be seen in Wilhelm Busch's stories of Max and Moritz.
In 1899, Sinram and Wendt founded a coat hanger factory in Hanover, where they mainly produced wooden coat hangers. The company later became known as Union.
And in 1955, MAWA GmbH registered its patent for the trouser hanger - so we have been making clothes hangers in Pfaffenhofen in Upper Bavaria for three quarters of a century!
"For our customers all over the world, metal and wooden hangers from MAWA simply stand for quality." - Michaela Schenk, Managing Director MAWA
Why are clothes hangers still made of wood today?
Wood is a natural material and is pleasant to the touch. It is therefore not surprising that wooden clothes hangers are extremely sturdy and at the same time "tactile", i.e. very pleasant to the touch.
Especially when they are made from beech - the tried and tested wood for making clothes hangers for centuries.
At MAWA, we seal the clothes hangers and sand them four times to make the surface particularly smooth so that they fit particularly well in the hand.
The indentations for skirts are also perfectly finished on our hangers so that no rough spots can damage the textiles.
The hook on our wooden hangers can be rotated all round and is stable, precisely because we make them from beech. You can use a MAWA clothes hanger for decades, it lasts - that's also what we mean by sustainable.
We mainly manufacture our wooden hangers from beech, whereby we source the wood from ecological and sustainable forestry with FSC® certification (certificate number SCS-COC-007973).
Beech has the advantage over other woods that it is very stable - which is of course important for a coat hanger that is also intended to carry heavy jackets and coats.
It is also very easy to work with: Beech, for example, is much easier to cut, sand and process than oak.
And it can be sanded beautifully smooth - unlike bamboo, for example, which is used for the industrial production of cheap hangers.
Bamboo is a very brittle wood that splinters easily: cheap producers try to compensate for this by applying thick layers of varnish to their hangers - unfortunately not at all environmentally friendly.
"Beech has been the tried and tested ironing wood for centuries because it is very stable and easy to work with."
- Michaela Schenk, Managing Director MAWA
How are wooden hangers produced?
MAWA is a genuine German company with a long tradition dating back to 1948.
We use water-soluble lacquers for our wooden clothes hangers, which are harmless to the environment. We also use certified wood that is grown sustainably.
Not only the wood that we process, but our entire company is FSC® (FSC-C123656) certified (certificate number SCS-COC-007973). We undergo an audit for this every two years.
FSC® stands for "Forest Stewardship Council" and is an international certification system for sustainable forest management. Its aim is to ensure that forests around the world are utilised in a more environmentally friendly, socially responsible and economically viable way. In order to obtain the FSC® seal, companies must comply with and prove a number of standards - for example, that the forests from which they source their wood are managed according to strict ecological and social principles.
"Especially in France and Italy, where fashion plays a major role, many people rely on our high-quality wooden clothes hangers."
- Michaela Schenk, Managing Director MAWA
Wooden hangers - our range
From the very simple and tried-and-tested standard hanger made of untreated beech for pullovers, T-shirts etc. to the classic combination hanger with skirt notch and bar to the exclusive coat hanger with shoulder extension - you will find more than fifty wooden coat hangers in our collections, depending on your requirements:
Natural waxed, stained or coloured lacquered wood, for light tops, complete suits and costumes, heavy jackets and coats, in different widths for children, women and men, with a clip bar, as a clamp hanger or as a "mute servant" - and even with advice if you are not quite sure which model best suits your needs from this selection.
Wooden coat hanger for business customers
MAWA clothes hangers are available in different widths, depending on the clothing size. We usually recommend 30 centimetre wide hangers for children, 41 centimetre wide hangers for women and 45 centimetre wide wooden hangers for men.
Request conditions & buy wooden hangers
Fun fact: When women buy clothes hangers, they usually make sure that they save space in their wardrobe - and when men buy clothes, as we can see from our figures, they like to use comfortable, large hangers that have room for the whole suit. They then like to hang their shirts on narrow metal hangers in between.
"For men, a comfortable, large wooden hanger for their suits is often a kind of status symbol."
- Michaela Schenk, Managing Director MAWA
Ash hanger
In the Country range, we use the very special wood of European ash. It has an elegant grain and unique structures and looks very elegant.
By sanding already lacquered wooden hangers, this special wax look is created - the hangers are given a unique, velvety surface.
Wooden hanger for the hotel
You have probably already hung your jacket or blouse on a MAWA hanger without realising it: Many hotels also have their coat hangers manufactured by us.
We offer three collections especially for hotels: the MAWA Basic Line, Business Line and Design Line. Hotels can choose from a wide variety of surfaces, from natural to waxed, stained or coloured lacquered.
Custom-made products for hotels and shops are also available in other types of wood and of course in every conceivable colour combination.
The hook at the top rounds off the design and is available in black or white, gold or copper-coloured, matt or glossy.
And of course with anti-theft protection: we use a so-called hotel pin. This means that the hook is closed at the top so that the entire hanger cannot be removed from the rod, only the lower part made of wood.
Because, yes... our hangers are so popular that hotel guests (would) like to take them home with them :-)
MAWA - a "brand of the century"
Two years ago, our company was included in the series of German "brands of the century".
German companies that "prove their greatness (...) and set standards" receive this award as "German Standards", as Dr Florian Langenscheidt, founder of the initiative, says.
"They are the foundation for social responsibility: with innovative spirit and foresight. With a living tradition. With economic power of significance."
Alongside brands such as Märklin, Melitta, Langnese and Hipp, MAWA is now officially one of the "Icons of the German Economy".
Sustainability is a top priority at MAWA - and not just for our wooden hangers
We do not use any toxic or harmful substances and are expressly against hangers that contain hazardous substances - because they come into direct contact with our skin every day.
For this reason, we have launched the ECO friendly and SKIN friendly initiatives for our metal clothes hangers - they are free from phthalate-based plasticisers and heavy metals.
We do not carry plastic hangers in our range as this material is not sustainable for us. Instead, we develop hangers made from new ECO materials, which are made from plant-based waste materials and also store CO2.
As a company, we are also committed to the United Nations' "Agenda 2030": We want our production to be carbon neutral by 2030.
Countless customers see us as a reliable partner who is committed to sustainability: Every year, we produce around 20 million clothes hangers for customers in 90 countries. Perhaps soon for you too?