---
node: fashion_joseon
type: fashion
slug: joseon_dynasty_fashion
title: "Fashion in the Joseon dynasty"
lead: "Under Joseon the hanbok crystallised into its classic form: the women's jeogori grew extremely short, the chima full and high on the chest, and men wore the durumagi coat and the horsehair hat, the gat."
published: 2026-07-28
updated: 2026-08-15
image_file: joseon_dynasty_fashion.jpg
image_source: "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kim_Hong-do._1st_fold._Screen._Genre_painting,_c._1768._Mus%C3%A9e_Guimet_MA_2544.jpg"
image_author: "Kim Hong-do (photo: Ismoon, CC BY-SA 4.0)"
image_license: "CC BY-SA 4.0"
change: "Deepened all three sections for SEO deepening wave 11; also removed ASCII double quotes, which the siblings did not carry"
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requester: internal
reason: "One of the thinnest pages in the period_fashion_en cluster; the en-us edition alone carried ASCII double quotes against decision(localization), so that fix is en-us only"
---

## Overview

Joseon is where the hanbok reaches the proportions now thought of as classic, and the change is dramatic: over five centuries the women's jacket shrinks from hip length to barely covering the bust, while the skirt rises and swells beneath it. Confucian order governed the wardrobe, and white was so general that Koreans were known as the white-clad people.

## Key garments and style

The women's outfit is the very short jeogori, tied with a long ribbon, over the chima gathered high on the chest — a silhouette that is almost all skirt. Men wore jeogori and baji under the durumagi coat, and out of doors the gat, a wide-brimmed hat of horsehair and bamboo so fine it is translucent.

Officials wore the hyungbae, an embroidered rank badge on chest and back, cranes for civil office and tigers for military.

Two excesses are documented because the state moved against them. The gache, an enormous wig of braided false hair, grew heavy enough to injure wearers and was restricted by royal edict in the eighteenth century. Ornament otherwise concentrated in the norigae, a knotted pendant hung from the jacket tie.

Ramie and hemp for summer, cotton and silk for winter, with undyed cloth ordinary and colour reserved by rank and occasion.

## Transition

With the Korean Empire and the opening of the country, Western uniform entered the court, and the reformed hanbok of the colonial decades followed.