Traditional Korean Clothing
A look at the traditional outfits and clothing of Korea.
Location: North Korea; South Korea
The Korean Hanbok
The most iconic Korean outfit is the hanbok worn by both men and women. Its name is short for hanguk boksik, or "Korean clothing." The hanbok can be recognized on murals of Goguryeo dynasty tombs, painted nearly 1600 years ago. A woman's hanbok consists of a full-sleeved jacket, or jeogori, secured by a wide ribbon above the waist. This rests over a long skirt, or chima. Men wear loose trousers, paji, a longer jacket, and an overcoat, or po.
Western-style clothing is now the norm in South Korea. Hanbok are still commonly worn during traditional ceremonies and formal occasions. North Korea continues to support the hanbok as a rejection of Western customs. North Korean chima are shorter than their historical counterparts, falling to the mid-calf or ankle.[1]
Status and Materials in Joseon Korean Clothing
Nearly all classes of the Joseon dynasty wore the hanbok. The quality of clothing and its materials denoted a person's class and status in life. Commoners made their plain outfits from white cotton fiber called moo-myung, ramie, or hemp.[2] In summer, small children often went uncovered. Many farmers remained barefoot or wore rice-straw shoes. Peasants protected their heads with cone-shaped, waterproof straw or bamboo hats.[3]
The nobility, on the other hand, enjoyed access to trade along the Silk Road. Their colorful silk, satin, and hemp clothing signalled their positions in society. In summer, silk kept its wearer cool, while winter clothing was lined with fur or wadded with cotton. Upper-class shoes could be made from silk, leather, or wood. They needed to be easy to slip on and off while entering or leaving buildings, such as the komushin shoes still worn by women with hanbok.[1][3]
Korean Headwear and Accessories
Headwear was an important status symbol in Joseon society. Fashionable court members adopted many different trends over the centuries. Most famous of these was the gat, a wide-brimmed hat of woven horsehair. Gat were limited to married men of status and formal occasions. At home, men took to the more comfortable jeongjagwan of Chinese courts. Men also wore four-cornered and conical hats in the Chinese style.[5]
Women sported smaller but more decorative caps, hoods, and pins. According to Confucian tradition, they were required to cover their faces in public. They usually did so by wearing jangot veils, which evolved from the po overcoat.[4][6] One notable hairstyle involved the tteoguji, a large wooden ornament, and false braids, gache, woven into an elaborate hairdo. Other women's hats like the ayam cap became popular in the late Joseon. Norigae, a type of braid craft, hung from outfits as colorful tassels and purses for decoration.[7][8]
Bibliography
Donald Neil Clark, Culture and Customs of Korea (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2000), 108-110.
K. E. Lee, “Korean Traditional Fashion Inspires the Global Runway” in Ethnic Fashion, ed. Miguel Ángel Gardetti and Subramanian Senthilkannan Muthu (Singapore: Springer, 2016), 56-59.
J. Robert. Moose, Village Life in Korea (Nashville, TN: Publishing House of the M.E. Church , 1911), 97.
Ibid., 118.
'n-su Ch'oe, Hy'ng-bak Pak, and Eunhee Hwang, Gat: Traditional Headgear in Korea (Daejeon: National Research Institute of Cultural Heritage, 2012).
Ky'ng-ja Yi et al., Traditional Korean Costume (Kent: Global Oriental, 2007), 22.
Helen Koo, "Norigae" in Ethnic Dress in the United States: a Cultural Encyclopedia, ed. Annette Lynch and Mitchell D. Strauss (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015), 211-212.
The King at the Palace: Joseon Royal Court Culture at the National Palace Museum of Korea (Seoul: National Palace Museum of Korea, 2015), 127.
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