The Journal, page 8
A place to learn about hanbok and Korean celebrations, at your own pace.
Page 8 of 9.
- Korean Culture
What Korean Horror Knows About Us
Korean horror runs on a different engine than American horror. The American film delivers shock with sound design and jump cuts. The Korean film holds the shot…
- Hanbok Guides
When to Wear a Hanbok
You have a hanbok in the closet (or you are thinking about one) and you want to know when it is right to wear it. The short answer: more often than you think…
- Hanbok Guides
The Garment That Carries a Country
Walk through the National Museum in Seoul and you can trace a country through its collars. The wide, structured yoke of the Goguryeo tomb murals. The high…
- Hanbok Guides
The Order a Man Dresses
Bottoms first. That is the sentence Eric's father used before every Chuseok dinner in Seoul, and it is still the sentence Eric uses when a father-of-the-bride…
- Hanbok Guides
The Order a Woman Dresses
The 치마 goes on before the 저고리. This is the first rule, and it is the one most people get wrong the first time. Skirt, then jacket, then the 고름 tied to fall…
- Hanbok Guides
Dressing in Order, the Men's Way
A groom stands in front of the mirror in socks and a white undershirt. His father hands him the 바지 first, then the 저고리, then the vest, then the coat called…
- Hanbok Guides
Dressing in Order, the Women's Way
Mrs. Lee lays the pieces on the bed in order. Underskirt first, then 치마, then 저고리, then the tie called 고름. She has done this for daughters, brides, and…
- Hanbok Guides
What Men Wear Now
A father in San Mateo pulls his own father's black durumagi from a garment bag. It was tailored in Seoul in 1978, worn twice, folded away for forty years. The…
- Hanbok Guides
What Hanbok Has Always Meant
Morning light hits the silk first. A jade 치마 hung on the wall catches it and holds it, the surface not shiny but slightly luminous, the way old…
- Hanbok Guides
Why Hanbok Still Means Something
Hanbok carries cultural weight that most clothing does not have to carry. A wedding hanbok is the same garment family as the daily cotton piece worn on a…
- Hanbok Guides
The Tassel at Her Waist
The 노리개 on Mrs. Lee's writing desk is small, no bigger than a plum, jade knotted onto crimson silk cord with a short tassel at the end. It belonged to her…
- Hanbok Guides
What Goes on the Doljabi Table
The doljabi is the small ceremony at the heart of the dol, the Korean first birthday. A low table is set with a handful of symbolic objects (a brush, a thread…
- Hanbok Guides
Why the Child Reaches for Something
The child crawls toward the table. The grandparents lean forward. The camera is already recording. In a moment a small hand will close around a spool of thread…
- Hanbok Guides
The Cloth That Carries Everything
Mrs. Lee keeps a small stack of 보자기 in a drawer beside the linen napkins. One is pale celadon, pieced from silk scraps left over from a wedding hanbok she made…
- Hanbok Guides
What the Fabric Tells You
The Hanbok 101: Brief History, Different Fabrics, and How to Maintain Them A Brief History on Hanbok A hanbok holds two materials in conversation. The silk…
- Korean Culture
Asia's Traditional Dresses, Side by Side
A guest at a Bay Area wedding last summer wore a saree, sat beside a friend in an áo dài, and greeted the bride's mother in hanbok. Three garments, three…
- Korean Culture
Sixteen Hundred Years, One Image
A reader once asked a simple question. Where does the hanbok come from, and can you show me. Eric sat with his mother at the kitchen…
- Korean Culture
What Traditionally Korean Really Means
What does it mean for something to be “traditionally Korean”? A magoja hangs in Mrs. Lee's studio, dated 1978, in a color that has no modern equivalent. Beside…
- Korean Culture
The Wrap Skirt and the Tassel
A linen wrap dress in soft indigo lay across the fitting-room bench, a small jade 노리개 resting on the collar where it had been pinned for the try-on. The…
- Korean Culture
More Than Clothing, Less Than Costume
Hanbok is the dress Koreans wore for the everyday and for the ceremony, and the same form held both. The court wore silk. The farmer wore cotton. The structure…
- Hanbok Guides
The Hanbok That Doesn't Date
Traditional hanbok holds a silhouette no other piece of clothing carries. A short jacket tied at the chest with a long ribbon. A wide skirt that falls from a…
- Hanbok Guides
From Crown to Hem, the Silhouette
Watch a scene from Mr. Sunshine and look at how the actress moves. The 저고리 sits weightless at the collarbone. The 치마 pools without dragging. Nothing on her…
- Hanbok Guides
Hanbok for the Whole Wedding Party
At many Korean American weddings the couple is not the only family in hanbok. Parents, grandparents, siblings and children may wear it too, often for the…
- Hanbok Guides
The Year Hanbok Walked Outside
Modern hanbok is no longer a niche of a niche. The cheollik dress that Seoul ateliers started making in the mid-2010s is now a category. The cropped mini chima…