The Complete Handbook of Armoires & Wardrobes

Chapter 1: Understanding Armoires & Wardrobes

The Working Definition of an Armoire and a Wardrobe

An armoire is a tall, freestanding case piece with doors, designed to store clothing, linens, or equipment. A wardrobe is the same piece of furniture under a different name, though historically the term carried slight regional and functional differences. In the American furniture trade, an armoire commonly has a solid hanging compartment behind two full-length doors, with drawers or shelves built into a lower section or as an internal stack on one side. A wardrobe is often considered a simpler variant, typically a single rectangular box with doors and a hanging rod, sometimes with a shelf above the rod. In practice, the terms are used interchangeably by consumers, and many retailers use both to describe the same SKU. The important point for a professional is that both are enclosed, vertical storage units. They differ from a chest of drawers, which has no hanging space, and from an open clothing rack, which has no enclosure. They are also not the same as a closet built into the wall, though they can serve as a substitute for one.

The functional purpose of an armoire is to allow the user to store clothing vertically without a dedicated walk-in closet. This makes it a staple in urban apartments, condominiums, hotel rooms, and bedrooms in older houses that lack built-in clothes storage. The unit compresses the footprint of a wardrobe into a single tall footprint—typically across 48 to 72 inches