The majority of residences in the developed world have at least one closet full of articles of clothing on garment hangers. Using garment hangers for clothing storage provides easier viewing and access to clothing, and it is usually faster to hang clothing as opposed to folding. There are numerous different styles of garment hangers that meet budget constraints and clothing needs. People tend to invest more money on a garment hanger used with an expensive suit or jacket, but not for a shirt or sweater. Dress shirts, T-shirts, pull-overs and turtle necks frequently are placed on an inexpensive plastic or metal hanger. A problem that is often just tolerated is that the neck openings of these garments must be stretched or unbuttoned if the garment is removed from the hanger while it is still on a clothes rod. A closely related problem occurs when these garments are removed from the hanger by simply tugging on a shoulder of the garment until it stretches the neck opening over a hanger arm. The resulting spring force, when the garment is released from the hanger, commonly causes the hanger to be propelled off the clothes rod. Granted, all of these problems could be avoided if a person were to unhook the hanger and remove the garment by feeding the hanger down through the bottom of the garment, but this is awkward for most, and time consuming if the hanger snags on the inside of the garment while being removed.
Many have tried to develop a cost effective foldable or collapsible hanger that is easy to operate and will accommodate narrow-necked shirts and sweaters. Most of the prior art of the last 120 years is a variation of one or more of the following: the hanger arms are spring loaded and can temporarily be forced downwardly into a collapsed position, such as those described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,730,757, 4,813,581, 6,427,882, and 6,540,121; the hanger arms are spring loaded and can temporarily be forced laterally into a folded position, such as those described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,114,786, 4,988,021, and 5,480,076; or the hanger arms are normally in a locked position but can be released into a collapsed position, such as those described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 320,230, 395,884, 765,331, 2,509,754, 2,906,442, 2,941,704, 4,186,857, 4,231,499, 5,044,534, and 5,590,823. The first two variations are spring loaded devices, which can make them difficult to handle and control, so they present their own set of problems when a user attempts to insert and manipulate such a spring loaded garment hanger into the neck opening of a shirt. On the other hand, the garment hangers of the third variation frequently have many piece parts, are awkward to handle, or they are just too expensive to make available to the general public.