Korean Historical Clothing

Important to know!

This website is compiled by Members of the Society for Creative Anachronism. The SCA is a non-profit, hybrid Reenactment-LARP hobby, and as such, no member is limited on what they choose for their reenactment focus geographically, as long as it it pre-1600 CE.

Cultural Appropriation is a very important issue, and one of this website's goals is to help compile accurate and helpful research for any reenactor or historical costumer, so as to avoid being disrespectful and ignorant of modern contexts. Anyone can feel free to contact me (Jacquelyn Hansel) directly via the information in the footer.

Terms

Many historical costuming hobbies blend easily with cosplay, LARP, strict reenactment circles, festivals, and fashion subcultures. However, with all this blend we can sometimes start sharing terms from each other interchangably. For the purposes of the website, and the discussion on this page in particular, I will define the differences that I prefer to make between some similar terms.

For specific object terms: If the origin word is in another language, I will use a translatable equivalent if there's a common one. If there's not a common English equivalent, I will instead romanize the term using the language that is being discussed.

Costume/Clothing - an outfit that is worn
Garb - a common alternative to "costume" in the LARP and SCA communities (and elsewhere) that implies that the clothing is not everyday, and possibly historical or historical fantasy.
Cosplay
Traditional
Historical
Modern - This will depend on context, but often this will mean "Modern Era" because I work with
Street Fashion/Subculture Fashion
Kit

Eventually, we'll have pages up for each of these sections.

Sub Categories:

Three Kingdoms (~18BCE - 668CE)

Northern-Southern Period (668 - 935CE)

Goryeo (918–1392)

Joseon (1392–1897)

Class Recording:

This is a two and a half to three hour lecture-style class that I (Choi Min) give as often as possible, at events that can offer a presentation screen and internet. Eventually I hope to have it in a readable format on this website, but in the meantime, here is a recording of October 15th, 2022's version of the presentation, taught at Daigaku-ryo (Pan-Asia University), a virtual SCA event focusing on Asian historical recreation topics by and for reenactors. Also in the near future, I hope to get this on a better video player and with captions. Bibliography at the end of the page.

This page will be updated to include more than the video (eventually).