Dressing Room: 15 Basic Rules

Betty Moore
5 min readApr 19, 2017

Storage systems, shelves, and sections must be selected with great care taking into the consideration all the details to ensure the comfort in your dressing room. What to consider when planning a dressing-room for a woman, a man, and a family?

Today, when the dressing room can be created in any size to order, there are more and more questions: at what height is it better to place shelves, is it worth to get metal baskets, do women’s and men’s cabinets differ altogether? There are advices on how to furnish the dressing room that is suitable for you.

Basic rules

  1. The dressing room should be spacious. The minimum area is 3 square meters. In this case, the length of one of the walls should not be less than 2 meters.

2. The main thing is accessibility In addition to the usual interior; many people use popular sliding doors — those that move easily due to the mechanism on the bottom.

3. There should be several zones in the dressing room. The upper is shelves for storage of off-season or rarely used things. The middle zone (located at an altitude of 24 to 67 inches from the floor) is the main storage space for clothes. Lower — for storing shoes or things that are not used so often.

Women’s dressing room

Women are always short of space for clothes whatever the size of the dressing room; therefore, they pay attention primarily to boxes, shelves, and stands. And of course, they do not forget about the aesthetic appearance — roughly made or plastic storage systems will not exactly pass the face control.

1. Boxes are the main female assistants in the organization of storage. They reduce the feeling of disorder. It is worth considering it when choosing the height of the shelves.

2. Pantyhose, socks, and underwear should be stored in shallow drawers divided into sections. The length depends on the type of things: brassieres require sections that are more authentic, for socks the square one are suitable.

3. In the women’s dressing room, try to allocate space for a dressing table. Whether you need to apply makeup or fix hair before going out — all the necessary things will be there.

4. High sections will unlikely be useful for men but for long dresses and skirts they will be indispensable. Fix it at such a height that the hem of the longest dress does not touch the bottom shelf.

Men’s dressing room

There is an opinion that men have fewer things than women, so they do not need a separated dressing room. It is not quite so. The thing is men care the external design of the wardrobe less than its contents. Most often they focus not on design but on functionality and practicality.

  1. In the men’s dressing room you need hangers for jackets, shirts, more sections with special holders for trousers, preferably of different mounting heights.

2. To store ties, belts you can buy special hangers. But hats and gloves better store in drawers — so there is less chance of losing them.

3. If a man is engaged in sports, take a separated zone for his hobbies. If you economize your space, you can place this section above the door, equipped with special holders for snowboarding or skis.

4. Another important point that must be taken into account when completing the men’s wardrobe is the seasonal storage of things. Men have a lot of light and warmer shirts and jackets — you won’t go without cases for clothes.

Dressing room for the family

A full dressing room occupies a decent area; therefore, the owners of apartments and houses do not divide it into female and male but use storage systems together.

  1. You won’t do without a good lighting: do not just limit yourself to the light from the chandelier. Install additional lighting on the sides or built-in furniture in the spotlights: with their help, you can easily see the entire contents of the cabinet.

2. No one man can manage without a few pair of shoes, while women may have the whole collection. A roomy rack in the entire height of the dressing room is a perfect solution.

3. In the dressing room, you can store not only clothes; this is a great place for storing bedding. The ideal depth of the shelves is 20 inches.

4. Fix several hooks or a special holder for scarves to the wall or a cabinet door but for large and small bags it is better to take a separated stationary shelf.

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Betty Moore

A furniture and interior designer who lives and works in NYC. Being in love with creative design and stylish furniture, I write the articles about furnishings))