5 minute read

Gat: Korea’s Traditional Hats

from National Museum of Korea: Quarterly Magazine, vol.52

by National Museum of Korea

from National Museum of Korea: Quarterly Magazine, vol.52, page 32

Article from: National Museum of Korea: Quarterly Magazine, vol.52

Mural Paintings on Public Buil...

FOCUS

By Min Bora Associate Curator, Daegu National Museum

The Korean drama series Kingdom has aired recently on Netflix, and the viewers’ response was surprising. Non-Koreans who watched the series showed special interest in the gat, a hat of horsehair or bamboo that was worn by Koreans in Joseon period. Short reviews posted online contain many favorable comments such as “a drama about zombies and hats,” “fancy hats,” and “beautiful hats.” Also amusing was the foreigners’ English spelling of the word as god or such. In fact, this interest in the Korean traditional hat is not limited to the present day. Foreigners who visited Korea in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries have left behind travel memoirs and newspaper articles with illustrations and stories about the appearance of Joseon people. Their descriptions of Joseon included such phrases as “the land of hats” and “a sailing ship with formal robe.”

Among Koreans today, the native word gat or the Sino-Korean equivalent ipja conjures up images of the classic black horsehair top-hat, called heungnip. In fact, the word gat refers to a wide range of headwear with a crown and brim. The history of the gat is long, with images even appearing on the tomb murals from the Goguryeo Kingdom 37 BCE–668 CE .

The heungnip originated from a hat of braided bamboo strips known as the pyeongnyangja, followed by a gat-shaped hat of woven straw known as chorip. This evolutionary process took place between the late Goryeo and early Joseon periods. A diverse array of gat styles appeared during the Joseon period, to include the black (heungnip), white (baengnip), vermilion (jurip), and animal fur (jeonllip) versions.

The pyeongnyangja (commonly pronounced paeraeng-i) is woven as a single piece that includes both the brim and crown.

By contrast, much finer workmanship can go into making the gat styles, as the crown and brim are first woven separately and then joined. Thus, the roughly made pyeongnyangja and chorip were meant to be worn by commoners, whereas the heungnip was reserved for the yangban classes. The heungnip look is uniquely Korean; this particular hat cannot be found anywhere else. Its subdued shade of black and wide brim contrasts nicely with the traditional gentleman’s robe to show an elegant refinement. The expression “sailing ship with formal robe” apparently was inspired by this style of attire.

Hats today are seen as a fashion accessory, but in Joseon period they reflected a Confucian culture that valued “keeping one’s hat and robes in proper order or balance” as well as a traditional concept of the self. The hat and robes represented both the wearer’s spiritual and physical nature, which were perceived to be connected closely rather than existing separately. Moreover, the human body was thought to be a medium through which Confucian values were expressed. In this sense, the spiritual aspect was believed to take precedence over the physical one.

Therefore, the gentleman’s ritual of tying up the topknot, putting on the headband, and then donning the black horsehair top-hat was an expression of Confucian culture and selfesteem as a member of Joseon society. The late Joseon scholars Yi Ik 1681–1763 , in his encyclopedic work Insignificant Explanations of Seongho, and Jo Jaesam 1808–1866 , in his Miscellaneous Notes of Songnam, both explained that the existence of the topknot was what distinguished the civilized from the barbarian. In addition, Joseon envoys to Beijing observed with pride in their private travelogues that the original Ming rules of formal dress, which includes the headband and top-hat, were being followed more faithfully in Joseon than they were in Manchu-led Qing Dynasty in China. That is why the haircut ordinance of 1895, which required all Korean men to replace their traditional topknots with short hairstyles, marked a great turning point in Korean traditional attitudes. It was a head-on challenge to the time- honored value stated in the Classic of Filial Piety: “My body, down to every hair and bit of skin, was received from my father and mother. I dare not damage it. This is the beginning of filial piety.”

Thereafter, the spiritual and physical aspects of a person began to be perceived separately rather than on equal terms. At the same time, the awareness and function projected upon the gat also started to change. Western-style suits became increasingly popular among Korean men, and they would wear a fedora instead of a traditional top-hat. Korean gentlemen would also wear the fedora with their traditional robes at times, and so new gat styling became steadily smaller at the brim and at times took on a somewhat strange, fedora-like appearance. Horsehair, a traditional material for making gat, was also used for the Western-style fedoras. These changes carried important significance in the sense that they served as the basis for directing hat fashion.

The Daegu National Museum reorganized its Textiles and Clothing Hall in 2019, installing a section dedicated to Korean traditional hats. The Museum is currently collecting and researching diverse headwear, ranging from the early Iron Age through Joseon, in preparation for a special exhibition on the gat scheduled to open in the second half of this year. This exhibition is expected to expand upon the concept of the hat from the clothing and accessories perspective, as well as to touch upon the social and cultural changes associated with the gat.

Currently the National Museum of Korea in Seoul and its thirteen affiliated national museums are establishing their own individual brands in step with their respective regions and the features of their unique collections. Fabrics and fashion are major industries in Daegu, so the Daegu National Museum focuses on them to reach residents. Archaeology is an important discipline in the Daegu, Gyeongsangbuk-do area, but Daegu became one of Korea’s leading cities for textiles in the modern era. Therefore, fabrics and fashion are quite familiar there. Today, the importance of the local textile industry has fallen considerably, but as late as the 1970s, roughly one out of every two households made their living in the either textiles or garments, and the local people still have many stories to tell in this regard. The Daegu National Museum serves as a venue for preserving and sharing the memories of their lives and experiences.

**Banquet Given to European Diplomats by the Korean Minister of Foreign Affairs**

This article is from:

National Museum of Korea: Quarterly Magazine, vol.52

by National Museum of Korea