Pictorial Korea

Due to the solar and lunar New Year's holidays, January and February are filled with the excitement and energy that comes with celebrating special occasions. It is a time to get out the hanbok (traditional Korean costume) you have tucked away in your closet and to prepare your children's solbim, new clothes for New Year's.

  For children, especially, dressing up in solbim symbolizes the start of a fun-filled day. Old men wearing a roomy vest called chokki over their hanbok. Young fathers wearing a hanbok with an outer jacket called magoja. Young mothers wearing a traditional overcoat over their hanbok and an ayam, fur cap. Children clad in brightly colored hanbok with striped sleeves and colorful hats or hair ribbons. Seeing them on the streets or around the neighborhood is enough to get you in a holiday mood. Although Western clothes have long been the fashion choice of Koreans, the hanbok still enchants us with its own charm based on its exquisite needlework and attention to detail.

  The silk shops in the Chongno area, where has been the center of silk trading for as long as anyone can remember, have displays of bright, luxurious fabrics that make you linger at their windows imagining what kind of clothes they could be made into. Just as selecting the right foundation is a key to creating great installation art, choosing the right fabric is an important factor in making lovely hanbok. And for fabrics one can do no better than going to Chongno where some silk shops have been in the business for more than three generations. At one shop, an elderly sales manager who comes from a family of three generations of sales managers, greets customers, many of whom have been shopping there for decades.

  The delicate and fine details of a well-made hanbok are the trademark of the designer boutiques that set the trends in hanbok fashions. Sometimes an entire family visits these boutiques to have solbim made. The quality of the boutiques is top of the line, be it tailoring or alterations, and they offer a variety of styles ranging from highly elegant to simple.

  Those who have worn hanbok know the classic elegance that comes from wearing silk undergarments, poson (padded cotton socks with upturned toes and formed ankles) and traditional silk or leather shoes--all part of the right look for hanbok lovers. Because they are basically undergarments, these luxuries are not readily visible to observers. However, it is only those who take the effort to dress in the correct way, that is, wearing those undergarments, socks and shoes, that can be rightly called the leaders of hanbok fashion.

Hanbok fashions are created through studies of what constitutes elegance and is expressed through a combination of color, cut and tailoring. Some well-known hanbok designers are Jung Jung-wan, Lee Lee-ja, an expert in hanbok fashion, Heo Young, and Lee Jung-ryone who is known for her skill in quilting. They all agree that when it comes to solbim it is important to remember to use fabrics appropriate to the season such as wool and silk. They say that it is no longer fashionable to wear a thick silk gauze lining in winter.

  The hint of white poson whose nose is slightly visible under a hanbok skirt is a very attractive sight. The underskirt that becomes slightly visible when the skirt is wrapped tightly around the body can be regarded as a fashion statement. For ceremonial hanbok, a slightly fluffed-up underskirt is recommended. But New Year's hanbok should be dressy and at the same time practical. A woman should be able to bind her skirt so that she can move freely to prepare and serve food and a slight brush with food will not harm the fabric.

  Children's solbim should include a hanbok as well as a colorful outer robe, and a long, sleeveless vest as well as traditional caps and hair ornaments. If you visit a museum with displays on traditional garments, you can see many decorative accessories for boys and girls including colorful hair ornaments and ribbons, caps and hats. The stripes of childrens striped sleeves should not be too thick. Perhaps you're thinking, Why prepare solbim for children? Those who have experienced the joy and excitement that comes from wearing solbim view hanbok differently when they grow up and thus continue the tradition of wearing this beautiful costume for special occasions.