---
node: fashion_colonial_period
type: fashion
slug: japanese_colonial_period_in_korea_fashion
title: "Fashion in Colonial-Era Korea"
lead: "In the colonial period Western dress spread, above all in the cities, and the \"modern girl\" and \"modern boy\" appeared; the hanbok was reformed for ease of movement and remained everyday wear."
published: 2026-07-28
updated: 2026-07-28
change: "Created as a fashion sub-page under the history section (korea region)"
requester: internal
reason: "Per the owner's decision, fashion lives under each history era"
---

## Overview

In modern urban life and schooling, Western clothes and uniforms spread and dress changed greatly.

## Key garments and style

Urban youth wore modern Western clothes and schoolgirls wore uniforms such as the sailor suit, while a "reformed hanbok" — a shorter chima and a simpler jeogori — was devised as practical dress. In wartime, monpe work trousers were imposed.

## Transition

After liberation in 1945, dress followed the separate modernising paths of North and South.