In an age where custom furniture has never been more accessible to more people, it is remarkable to see the stages of evolution that some of the staple pieces vital to any home have gone through.
The development of online building tools that let people design the fitted wardrobe of their dreams and have it delivered ready to install is the latest evolution in bespoke furniture, giving more people than ever before the chance to maximise their space and add a personal touch to their home.
It is perhaps fitting that of all the many pieces of furniture that could have innovated like this, it was the wardrobe, a staple of every bedroom, that has seen more fundamental changes than perhaps any other type of furniture ever made.
The only way to truly meet the needs of everyone is with a bespoke tool, as the wardrobe has changed size, shape and functionality countless times throughout human history.
Here are some of the evolutions that bespoke wardrobes have gone through, and how they have shaped the many options available today.
As is the case with many staple pieces of furniture, the need for a wardrobe existed long before it took the form we recognise today. Even the word itself only dates back to the late 1200s, during which time its meaning would change somewhat regularly.
It was a dressing room, a private chamber, or even a water closet, as Geoffrey Chaucer rather cheekily described it. The logic of the latter was that washrooms would have a place to hang clothes so that they would stay clean.
The term itself came from the Old French word garderobe, which meant the place where clothes were guarded, and as early as the 15th century could mean both the storage medium and the stock of clothes themselves.
However, the term was not strictly used to describe a piece of furniture until the late 18th century, but there were options for people to store their clothes before then.
Arguably, the first wardrobes were chests, one of the earliest, simplest and most important pieces of furniture ever made and the foremost ancestor for the wardrobe as we know it today.
Some of the earliest examples date as far back as Ancient Egypt, and whilst more ornate models were used as part of funeral rituals to ensure that the departed had everything they needed for the next life, they were also used in everyday life, typically made from woven reed or wood.
Typically, they were the most important, if not the only major piece of furniture in the house, used to store not only clothes but valuable items, weaponry or even food. Each of these use cases would eventually receive a dedicated piece of furniture.
The chest would continually evolve throughout ancient history, with each early civilisation having a tradition of clothes storage, up until the fall of Rome in the fifth century AD.
The chest would remain the most important piece of furniture in the house, the same way that the wardrobe is often the largest, most imposing and most important pieces today, but the designs would evolve to be more robust and practical rather than ornamental.
The post-Roman era was a reset for clothes storage, with many chests being made from a hollowed-out oak tree trunk secured with bands of iron. These dugout chests were mostly found in churches to store books and vestments.
However, as the Medieval period progressed, many of these were replaced with heavier, bespoke chests made from boards, secured with iron bands and fitted with locks, and the designs started to change from basic boxes to more specialised forms to fit the types of items they would store.
Clothes chests, for example, would increasingly be placed on small feet to keep them off the ground, and were typically fitted with a small box containing herbs that could help keep them smelling fresh in an age before washing machines and detergent.
Around the time that the word wardrobe was entering common use in England, its shape and design were still in flux, with the types of furniture we would describe as wardrobes today having a very different purpose.
The armoire, for example, which resembles a particularly large and imposing wardrobe to the modern eye, was not originally designed for clothes, although the fact that it was the perfect shape for storing both hanging and folded clothes would eventually be appreciated by cabinet-makers.
During the Renaissance, armoires would not only start to be used for clothing, eventually supplanting the clothes chest as the primary tool for storing clothes for the wealthy, but they would start to focus not just on practicality but on aesthetics.
An armoire was not only a wardrobe but also a statement piece; it reflected the style, priorities and values of its owner, and many beautiful examples still endure as glorious museum pieces and antiques.
By the 17th century, in a more reserved form, the standing armoire would become the linen-press, then the tallboy and finally the wardrobe, a more practical and versatile type of armoire built specifically for storing clothes.
At this point, the focus of bespoke design was not necessarily just to stand out but to harmonise with a room’s appearance, aided by the parallel development of the concept of interior design by the 19th century.
Since wardrobes became a standard piece of furniture in every home starting in the 19th century, the focus has been on providing greater choice and greater variety to meet every need possible.
The fitted wardrobe was the ultimate end-point of this, as it was the most efficient use of space. However, its availability was often limited by both cost and whether any experts were in the local area and willing to build a fitted suite for you.
The development of online tools and bespoke flatpack furniture has allowed everyone the opportunity to have a fitted wardrobe catered to their needs.
