Jeogori · 저고리
The short jacket worn by every gender, cropped above the natural waist. The jeogori closes with the goreum, a long flat ribbon tied off-center at the chest.
Hanbok, briefly
The clothes a country kept.
A short guide to what hanbok is, how it is built, and the moments it shows up in a Korean life.
What it is
A garment, not a costume.
Hanbok (한복) is the traditional dress of Korea. The form stabilized in the Joseon dynasty (1392 to 1897) but the roots run further back, into the murals of the Goguryeo tomb chambers. For most of those six centuries, hanbok was simply what Koreans wore.
The architecture is consistent. A short cropped jacket (the jeogori) tied at the chest with a long ribbon (the goreum). A wide, high-waisted skirt for women (the chima) or wide-leg pants for men (baji). Outer robes layered over the top when the season or the ceremony calls for them. Quiet through the body, decorated at the collar, the cuff, the closure.
The Korean reading is that the body inside the hanbok holds the silhouette. The fabric drapes; the wearer carries it. That is why hanbok looks structured on a hanger and alive on a person.
The parts
What you are looking at.
Chima · 치마
The high-waisted skirt worn by women. Wraps under the arms, pleats fall to the ankle. Carries most of the color and most of the weight of a hanbok’s read.
Baji · 바지
The wide-leg pants worn by men under the jeogori. Loose through the thigh, gathered at the ankle with a cord. Built for sitting cross-legged on a heated floor.
Durumagi · 두루마기
The long outer robe worn over the jeogori in winter or for ceremony. Falls below the knee. The piece that turns a hanbok from everyday into formal.
Goreum · 고름
The ribbon that closes the jeogori. Tied in a specific knot, with the long tail dropping diagonally across the chest. The first thing an eye trained in hanbok looks at.
Norigae · 노리개
The ornament tied at the goreum knot. Tassels, knots, jade, silver, daffodil yellow silk. Small, but the detail an aunt notices first.
Modern and traditional
Two readings, one form.
Traditional hanbok keeps the historical silhouette intact. Silk, hand embroidery, the empire-waist jeogori, the full chima, the classic collar and cuff. It is what a bride wears for the paebaek. What an elder wears for a hwangap. What the family wears in the photograph.
Modern hanbok keeps the architecture and updates the proportions, the fabrics, the everyday wearability. Linen and cotton instead of silk. Cropped mini chima for downtown. Cheollik dresses for a garden wedding. The Korean lines stay; the register opens up.
The two are not in conflict. A household with both lengths dresses in conversation. The mother in long, the daughter in mini, the pleats catching the same light across one room.
When it shows up
The Korean year, in hanbok.
A wedding. A paebaek, the bow ceremony where two families become one. A dol, the child’s first birthday, with the saekdong rainbow stripes on the sleeve. Chuseok, the autumn harvest, in deep amber silk. Seollal, the lunar new year, in soft pastels. A hwangap, the sixtieth birthday, with the family gathered in coordinated palette.
Outside those, hanbok also lives in the weekday. A linen chima with a modern blouse. A cheollik on a rooftop in August. A jeogori under a wool coat for a Saturday market. The garment can hold ceremony or hold a regular day. The wearer decides.
Hanbok looks structured on a hanger and alive on a person.
Read further
Korea, beyond the garment.
The culture the hanbok lives inside, and the country it comes from.
Begin
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