Cinzia Fiaccadori talks about crocheted clothes hangers used in her family

Since I was a child I have loved opening wardrobes and browse around in them. I always found everything neat and tidy and well organised inside. Over time, I learned the whys and wherefores of every detail. I did not inherit the ability to make things with my hand from my grandmother, who owned a large tailoring and dressmaking business, but she passed on to me her sense of the beauty and a passion for details behind the forms, fabrics and colours.

Memories of hangers and clothes stands

I can remember at least ten types of hangers and clothes stands, each with its own shape and purpose. There were hangers for men’s coats with very broad shoulders, and differently shaped hangers for ladies’ coats and furs, while skirts and trousers were fixed in place with little pins with coloured glass heads and straight, padded and covered hangers. The clips or wooden rods used to hold up trousers and skirts today were never allowed to come anywhere near the dressmaker’s fabrics!

Details of crochet covered clothes hangers

As so it was that, as the years passed, my mother, who had the gift of knowing how to get things done, modernised the business, and we moved on from padded clothes hangers covered in coloured linen or silk to pale wooden hangers,  purchased strictly in Switzerland (up to a few years ago, I didn’t know they sold them in Ikea) and then carefully adorned with a crocheted covering made with her own capable hands. The details: even the hook was covered and the hangers were prepared in carefully graded shades of colour, or else they were all coloured the same and finished with a fine silk satin bow around the “neck”.

Crocheted coat hangers for every occasion

My gifts to the first born children of my friends were 6 baby-sized clothes hangers made by mamma Lola.
Now, in the wardrobe, all my blouses hang from hangers crocheted by my mum. I keep them in a special bag full of wooden hangers waiting to be covered, along with a ball of yellow cotton and the “tools of the trade”.
I’m lucky, I can still rely on my mother’s work and passion for these great little objects, the clothes hangers. But if you don’t have my good fortune, you can find them at Toscanini!