Pick the right wardrobe width for your clothing collection.
A wardrobe is three columns side by side, and sizing it means working out how wide each needs to be. Hanging is the biggest: about 1.25 inches per garment on a slim hanger, halved if you double-hang shirts and folded trousers on two rods. Folded items go on four shelves at roughly 0.9 inches of stack height each, converted into a shelf width. Shoes take about 9 inches of width per pair spread across four tiers. Adding the three columns gives the total internal width. The figure that most often surprises people is shoes — twelve pairs is 27 inches of wardrobe, more than the folded clothing column, which is why shoe storage usually ends up elsewhere.
Wardrobe Size
Hanging run = garments x 1.25 in / tiers; folded run = items x 0.9 in / 4 shelves; shoe run = pairs x 9 in / 4 tiers; width = sum / 12
About 4 to 5 ft of internal width covers a typical wardrobe of 60-80 hanging garments plus folded items, if you double-hang. Two people generally need 8 ft or a walk-in.
Twenty-four inches internal for front-facing hanging — a coat hanger is 17-19 in wide and needs clearance behind the door. Anything under 22 in forces side-facing hanging, which holds far less.