Eames Hang-It-All

With their Hang-It-All, Charles and Ray Eames elevated the everyday coat rack into something inventive and fun. First crafted with multicolored hooks and a white wire frame, the material and colorway offering has since expanded with fidelity to the sophistication—and sense of play—of the original.

To create the rack’s wire frame, which attaches to walls or other structures, Charles and Ray and the Eames Office applied the mass-production techniques for welding wires they had developed for earlier designs. The frame has a durable powder coat finish, and each of its angular bends is capped with solid wood balls. Still noted for its whimsy, the Hang-It-All is also appreciated as a useful piece of art.

Design Story

Ray Eames designed a variety of whimsical toys and furniture pieces specifically for children, including this 1953 piece for Tigrett Enterprises’ Playhouse Division. Why children’s products? For purely personal reasons: Charles and Ray wanted to give them to their own grandchildren and to the children of friends.

The Hang-It-All—along with molded plywood animals, small-scale chairs and tables, elaborate cardboard-and-paper masks, and brightly colored building blocks—were all given the same careful design consideration as the couple’s furniture designs. To achieve the Hang-It-All’s spidery base, the Eameses used the mass-production techniques for welding wires that they developed for their wire-base tables and wire chairs.