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I Spent $300 on This Coat Rack and I’d Do It Again

The Eames Hang-It-All is stylish, useful and a design icon.

Published February 27, 2024

Interior design trends come and go. Allegedly, the 2020s are supposed to be dominated by the hideous maximalism of the 1980s. Well, I’ll leave that for the fashion followers and hypebeasts of the world. My style is, and forever will be, mid-century modern. I’ll take clean lines, retro vibes and the perfect fusion of form and function 10 out of 10 times.

But there is a problem with mid-century modern design. While its reign as the top interior design trend may be waning, that hasn’t put a dent in the style’s white-hot market. True mid-century modern designs from true mid-century designers are timeless works of art and will likely always be coveted by those with money and taste. As a result, many of the most recognizable pieces from the design movement — the Eames Lounge Chair, the Womb Chair, the Knoll Sofa, the Arco Lamp — are priced like the museum-worthy works that they are. In other words, they’re extremely expensive and well out of my price range.

So, if you’re a person of less extravagant means who wants to decorate your home with mid-century modern designs, what can you do? Well, you can buy cheap knockoffs — which is not something I’m into, personally. Or, you can look for more affordable authentic pieces from those same hallowed designers that maybe don’t have quite as much cachet as their best-known works but will still add some class and sophistication to any space. I took the latter route, which led me to Herman Miller’s Eames Hang-It-All.

Yes, It’s a $300 Coat Rack

A little over a year ago, I moved cross-country to a much more modern apartment than where I’d been living for the prior seven-plus years. Having left basically all of my old furniture on the West Coast, I was in dire need of some pieces with which to fill my new space. Although I would have loved to fill it with authentic Eames and Saarinen pieces, that wasn’t in the cards financially. Instead, I turned to more affordable modern brands that emulate mid-century modern style: Article, Castlery, Burrow, Crate & Barrel. But I still wanted something authentically mid-century modern to tie everything together.

It just so happened that my new apartment also had an entryway problem. There was no closet or storage area near the door, which meant there was no place to hang a jacket. I needed a coat rack, and there was just one coat rack I could name off the top of my head: the Eames Hang-It-All.

Originally created by Charles and Ray Eames in 1953 as a fun way to encourage children to hang up their clothes, the Hang-It-All took on a second life as a designer object for adults after being reissued by Herman Miller in the 1990s. Its design style is decidedly Atomic, with differently sized balls of wood (originally multi-colored, but now also available in neutral colors) shooting out at various lengths from a wire metal frame.

The original incarnation of the Eames Hang-It-All features brightly colored wooden balls.

I pitched my wife on us getting a Hang-It-All and showed her a picture on DWR’s website.

“$300 for a coat rack?!” was her reply.

Admittedly, I’d never shopped for a coat rack before and didn’t really know how much they went for. To me, the price seemed reasonable for an authentic Eames design. A quick search on Target showed that non-Eames coat racks could be procured for a tenth of the price. Who knew?

Still, I wanted the Hang-It-All as much for the design heritage as the necessity, and thankfully, my wife understood its importance to me and agreed that we should get one. And boy, am I glad we did. Having had it now for more than a year, here’s why I love this coat rack so much.

It’s Basically the Most Affordable Eames You Can Get

Go to DWR’s website, search for “Eames” and then sort by price from low to high. One item is cheaper than the Hang-It-All: a miniature plastic toy elephant. One other item is priced the same: the Eames Wire Base Low Table, a tiny table that stands 10 inches tall. While both items certainly have their fans, I don’t think it’s a stretch to call the Hang-It-All the best-looking, most iconic and most useful of the three.

As such, the Hang-It-All makes for one of the affordable ways to add an authentic Eames piece — or, to go further, an authentic mid-century modern designer piece — to your home. Someday, I’d like to get an Eames Lounge Chair. But as I’m not currently in a position to drop upwards of ten grand on such a thing, I’m more than happy with the Eames on my wall.

Closeup of coat rack ball — With solid walnut wood balls affixed to metal wire, the Hang-It-All’s build quality is hard to miss.

three pieces of paper on a wooden table showing herman miller authenticity — As an official Eames designer product, the Hang-It-All comes with all the appropriate documentation.

It Looks Fantastic

The design of the Hang-It-All is undeniably striking, and it still looks fresh and unique more than 70 years after its creation. Rather than an afterthought like most coat racks, it serves as a conversation piece and can serve as the centerpiece in nearly any room in which it’s placed.

People always comment on it when they come over to my place, and it adds a dose of whimsy that is lacking from basically every other storage device in existence. My wife and I are both conscious not to overload it too much with jackets and other gear in the wintertime, not because we’re worried about damaging it, but because we want to leave some of it exposed in order to appreciate its beauty.

Yes, I am aware that is an absurd statement to make about a coat rack, but it’s the truth.

It’s Surprisingly Useful

Even if the Hang-It-All were strictly a decoration, I would get a lot of enjoyment out of it. But the fact that it’s extremely good at its intended use really makes it a stellar product in my book. The Eameses, like other great mid-century modern designers, believed that form follows function, and that philosophy holds true with the Hang-It-All. It looks the way it does because it’s supremely useful.

jackets and hats hanging on a coat rack on a door — Here, the Hang-It-All holds four coats and jackets, a backpack, a purse, a scarf, a hat, a towel, a dog leash, a dog jacket, a dog sweater, a human sweater, an umbrella and a partridge in a pear tree.

With large and small balls placed strategically throughout, the Hang-It-All can accommodate an array of items of disparate shapes and sizes. On a busy winter day, ours is adorned with numerous jackets, hats, scarves, purses, totes, dog leashes and harnesses, towels — you name it.

What’s more, the balls not only look great, but they also serve a practical purpose. Thanks to their spherical shape, they pose no threat to delicate items like sweaters that can be torn on the hooks of traditional coat hangers. The only tradeoff is even the smallest balls are too large for hanging items with very small openings, but that’s a problem I’ve only encountered once or twice.

The Herman Miller Eames Hang-it-All is available in seven different colorways — and right now it’s on sale for $236. (The all-black and all-white treatments are even cheaper, $196.)