Came for the Costumes, Stayed for the Character Arcs

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Last year one of my honorary grandkids recommended the movie KPop Demon Hunters, so I watched it and liked it, especially the beautiful songs.

The Netflix algorithm then suggested some other Korean TV series, so I picked one of the historical dramas to try, and I was immediately hooked.  The settings, the costumes, and the cinematography are beautiful, and the actors skillfully express such a wide range of emotions.

Other K-drama fans have analyzed what makes these series so satisfying.  Part of it is the format, which is comparable to a long Masterpiece Theatre season — these shows are limited series, with about 16 episodes that are an hour each.  The story line has time to develop and come to a satisfying ending; minor characters also get their own story arcs.

This time format means that the characters have more scope to learn and change.   With regular US TV series, no one ever knows how many seasons the show will air before cancellation, one or ten — so to hold the audience’s interest, no character can really develop or learn how to handle their issues.  Each week Raymond learns to back his wife over his intrusive mom, and Niles and Frazier learn to cooperate instead of competing for attention, but by the following week they have forgotten everything and have to learn the lesson all over again in 22 minutes. But with the K-dramas, the writers have time to bring the characters to self-realization and strong relationships.

If you haven’t watched a K-drama yet, I will caution you that it is not all Hallmark Channel-type rainbows and romance though.  There can be sudden short scenes of exceptional violence — the battle scenes don’t bother me; I admire all the choreography! — but there are scenes that emphasize how arbitrary and brutal encounters could be in a world that was rigidly hierarchical, with no recourse for people of lower status.  I am always ready to fast-forward.

And there is one other negative note for a crafter — most of the series are only available in Korean with subtitles, so for the first time in my life, I have to pay attention, and I am watching TV without sewing at the same time!  🙂

So enough about the plots and characters, let’s move on to the costumes! In the historical series I have watched, I have been impressed by the quality — close-ups reveal the textures of raw silk,  silk gauze, sumptuous embroidered panels, and bands of silk brocade on the upper-class characters, and hemp/ramie clothing and rope sandals on the commoners.

So naturally I wanted to know more — how accurate are these costumes?  What resources are the designers using?

The first resource I found was this book, Dress History of Korea: Critical Perspectives on Primary Sources.  I got it as a Kindle version, but the whole thing is downloadable as a PDF at the link above.  (It took me a few times to get it to download but it did eventually work.)  This book is very scholarly, and it has a whole chapter on the costume designers for films and series.

I am not going to try to give terms and definitions in this post, because I was able to embed this second fabulous book, The Encyclopedia of Traditional Korean Clothing, in its entirety.  Anything you might want to know is covered, including all the different garments, as well as the fabrics and dyes used:

If you would like a more concise resource, the Victoria and Albert Museum has a great page on hanbok tradition and its use today.

And here are a few museum collection garments:

Lady Kim’s white ramie unlined coat cheolik at Chungbuk National University Museum

Skirt of Madam Han from Seok Juseon Memorial Museum

After doing all this research, I remembered that our family archive contains decades of travel photos. Two family members have been to Korea for short visits, but sadly, no one took any photos of festivals or traditional dress.  However, my in-laws belonged to Friendship Force, and twice in the 1980s, they hosted guests from Korea! So I am including a few of those photos. Traditionally women in Korea wore two-piece outfits, but it looks to me like these ladies are wearing one-piece dresses.  They even brought one for my mother-in-law, but that must have been lost in one of the floods we went through.

I am really enjoying this dive into K-dramas, and I have even set up a page on this blog to track the ones I watch (tab at the top), and any other research material I come across.  If you love K-dramas too, I would love to hear from you!