Same Place, Different Time
Inspired by the Drama “Dear My Friends,” Dementia
I would like to begin this story with my initial impression of the Korean TV show “Dear My Friends” from before I watched it. Despite the fact that many legendary Korean actors starred in the show, I rudely presumed it would be a typically boring, sappy Korean TV show only because its focus was the elderly. After I finished watching it, I once again learned that one should not judge something only by its appearance. I absolutely loved this show. It went beyond all of my expectations. It introduces elderly Koreans adventurously enjoying their lives regardless of obstacles like dementia, divorce, or love/hate stories with family members. Though the stories were somewhat predictable, they were different in that they were full of the warm and bright sides of their lives. On top of this, it motivated me to make this piece from one scene.
Heeja Jo (played by Heyja Kim) has dementia. In one episode, she is on a tree-lined avenue where her friends find her after going missing. She went missing one night out of the blue. She acted like she was giving a piggyback ride to a baby. Heeja walked all the way to that far-away avenue in an old neighborhood where she lived when she was younger. Her dementia brought back past trauma from when she lost her baby. Her memories took her to that place. She confesses to her friends how scared she was when her baby son died but was not able to get any help from her past friends even though she poured out her emotions, held back after all those years, and ended up pulling her friend’s hair. While everyone was at the same place at the same time, only Heeja seemed to stay in a different time. Therefore, I wanted to describe this impression using a hanbok (traditional Korean clothing) as the primary object. In addition, when Heeja looked at her friends on one side, the camera angle caught my attention, showing her first love standing on the other side. Another idea came to me to show the different times as two opposite directions of blowing wind. Therefore, I used the two fabrics and leaves hanging on the tree behind the hanbok to show the different wind directions from that of the hanbok.
I also applied two parts of our culture to that tree. The way the fabrics are placed on the tree shows a form of a traditional Korean religious tree based on shamanism. Koreans believe and consider it to be a holy tree that protects villages. In addition, how I designed the fabric is based on gyubang craft. Gyu comes from gyu rooms; during Korea’s Joseon dynasty, gyu rooms only allowed noble women in order to sew. Bang means “room” in Korean.
The style of hanbok from this work displays the trend during the late Joseon dynasty. Personally, this is my favorite hanbok style as this can be harmonious both with sensuality and grace. The hanbok is known for having different trend styles throughout Korea’s long history. During the late Joseon dynasty, many Korean women loved tight and short tops (cream-colored top is jeogoli in Korean). Along with this, two strings on the jeogoli were made narrow and short (cream-colored strings on the cream jeogoli are goleum in Korean). Therefore, they had to make a malki (waistband; the yellow part is a malki) look wider on top of the chima (skirt), putting it over the gaseumgaligae (bra) to cover the skin. An interesting part of this trend is that women preferred to have a small bosom or tighten the gaseumgaligae and malki to look better with this design. This goes against our current standard of beauty, but this can make women look alluring without highlighting big bosoms. Unlike the tight jeogoli, women of the time loved a full-flowing chima. Lastly, the hanbok from this work is for a noble woman. Why, you ask? I am a little embarrassed to say, but this hanbok was a product of my personal color design and imagination. Autumn colors are my personal colors, so I designed it as if it were mine. As a result, I created it for a noble woman who had a relatively easy going life. You can see this from the direction the chima is to be worn. It is put on when the woman wants to pull the chima up to let it be in the front of the body from the left to the right. Although this part was not strictly applied to garment customs to show social class,if a woman wore the chima and pulled it up in front of her body from the right to the left during the late Joseon dynasty, that meant she was from a low social class (though this was also a hanbok chima style during the late Joseon dynasty). This custom settled strongly during the end of the Joseon dynasty. Therefore, Koreans currently wear their hanbok chima from the left side towards the right side.
