A wardrobe basically refers to furniture that stores clothing and other materials in the bedroom as well as in other rooms of a house in the contemporary context. The wardrobes which we see today are a kind of large furniture or big cupboards usually incorporating mirror, drawers including other various devices but basically to store clothes. However, the word “wardrobe” has a long and varieties of historical implications such as once the wardrobe was meant for the lavatory as per the use of the word by Geoffrey Chaucer. In another context, the word “wardrobe” was used not to refer furniture but to refer an apartment or a room. For example, the king’s wardrobe in medieval England referred to an elegant royal room filled with all sorts of administrative machinery.

In fact, the actual furniture where the clothes were stored was called “press” which was divided into two basic parts, a portion for laying the clothes flat in the furniture and the other part to hang the garments straight. In the course of time, the wardrobe as furniture for storing the clothes got established by the 17th century. Eventually, the wardrobes consisted of clothes press and flanked by recessed cupboards and incorporated into the bedrooms’ panelling. The wardrobes for storing clothes and other materials got very popular in the 19th century and there was massive demand and production of various types of wardrobes as people possessed more clothes. 

Then came a time when a bedroom without a wardrobe for storing clothes and other materials was seen as irrelevant and outdated. As per the demand, the wardrobe designers incorporated varieties of features in the wardrobes such as numbers of drawers, mirrors etc. with matching dressing table, washstand, and bed. It was in the 1860s when mirrors were fixed into the interiors and exteriors of the wardrobes particularly on the doors of the wardrobes which is still visible in many contemporary wardrobes. Even today in the 21st century, many people prefer mirrors on the inside of the door of the wardrobe as it is considered as a modern fashionable architectural structure often known as closet.

You can find numerous types and designs of wardrobes in the contemporary market with different reputed brands such as Cotswold Appleby wide double wardrobes from Cotswold company, Graham and Green wardrobe, Heal’s Brunel wardrobe, Hygena Bergen mirrored wardrobe, Lara double wardrobe, Vox 4 You Fold 4-door wardrobe, Hoxton Chevron wardrobe, Prague sliding 2-door wardrobe etc.