Retractable garment rod

A garment hanger support includes a housing for storably receiving a hanger support rod and a pair of spaced arms pivotally attached to opposite ends of the support rod. Each of the pivot arms have ends remote from the pivot mounting of each of the arms to the support rod which are pivotally and slideably mounted within the housing such that the support rod can be moved downwardly while the pivot arms at either end extend outwardly and downwardly forming a generally U-shaped structure when in an extended position. For storage, the support rod is pushed upwardly and the ends of the pivot arms remote from the hanger support slide inwardly and pivot for overlapping contracted storage within the housing with the lower surface of the hanger support rod enclosing the space into which the pivot arms are stored. In a preferred embodiment of the invention, the ends of the pivot arms are intercoupled to one another for synchronous movement between a substantially horizontal collapsed stored position and a substantially vertical extended use position. In a preferred embodiment, a rack and pinion structure is used to synohronize the motion of the arms.