Daily Life in Modern Culture

Since Korea opened its ports to the world and its culture, political and social changes emerged: there was a shift in Korean culture from being traditional to modern in terms of values, clothing, and housing. This exhibition examines modern lifestyles through clothing storage furniture, which was one of the most important type of furniture placed in the main room(anbang), as well as the clothing it held.

Furniture design was greatly influenced by the modernization of living space: houses during the Joseon dynasty had separate living spaces for male and female, unlike modern living spaces, such as urban style modern hanok or Japanese style housing. For example, a uigori-jang, which is a type of wardrobe that was placed in the male living quarter to hold male clothing, was transformed into a storage unit that could hold blankets and Western-style clothing in the main room during the modern period.

Jang-nong(compound cabinet) is a typical type of modern furniture, which combined two or more styles of furniture from the Joseon period. For example, the bottom would be a bandaji(chest with a hinged front flap), and the top would be used as a wardrobe decorated with jangseok(metal mounts), mother-of-pearl, and mirrors. As a result, people began to store their bedding in a jang(wardrobe) instead of placing them on top of a bandaji or a nong(chest). Furthermore, there were drawers added to these wardrobes, whereas mirrors or glass were used to decorate the doors. The furniture on exhibit represents a modern lifestyle and ranges from a chest inlaid with mother-of-pearl, which was used by the upper-class to flaunt their wealth in the 1920s, to a wardrobe with glass doors that was one of the array of articles necessary for marriage in the 1960s.

The changes in Korean clothing culture during the modern era were influenced by Western-style clothing and modernized traditional costumes. Western style became more dominant in men’s wear compared to women’s wear, which accompanied both Western-style and a modern version of traditional Korean clothing.

Since the time of enlightenment, the design and fabric of hanbok changed due to the development of weaving technology and textiles imported from Japan, U.K., and China: the length of jeogori(traditional jacket) and the shape of barae(the width of a sleeve) changed with time; new materials, such as yangdan(洋緞, foreign satin) from Japan and Hong Kong, velvet, lace, and nylon were used; goreum(ribbon) was replaced with a brooch when fastening a jeogori. These changes are evident in the hanbok collection that is on display in this exhibition.