The History of Clothing

Created with AI assistance and human review. How we check our sources · Corrections

19th Century · East Asia · 1800 - 1900

Chima

The chima is the full skirt worn by women as the bottom piece of Korean hanbok, tied at breast height and paired with a jeogori jacket.

By Dan Schnau · Last updated

A chima is the full skirt worn by women as the bottom piece of Korean hanbok, paired with a jeogori jacket.1 Skirts of this kind appear in Korean dress of the Three Kingdoms period (57 BC–668 AD), when the chima was "often both long and spacious," and the skirt remained part of women's dress through the Joseon dynasty (1392–1910).1

Painting of two women dancing with swords in short jeogori jackets and full red and blue chima skirts, watched by seated men in wide-brimmed black gat hats

Shin Yun-bok, Sword Dance (Ssanggeom daemu), from the album Hyewon pungsokdo, late Joseon dynasty, ink and color on paper. Kansong Art Museum, Seoul. Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain.

How It Was Worn

A 1992 chima in the Victoria and Albert Museum, made at the Seoul studio of Lee Young Hee, is navy blue figured silk with a white cotton bodice; it "ties at breast height, with a white band."2 Hanbok is cut and sewn flat,1 and to prevent creasing it is stored folded in a chest or hung over a wooden pole called a hwaetdae.2

Materials and Decoration

A 1980 outfit in the same museum pairs an undyed white ramie jacket with an indigo-dyed skirt of Andong hemp or ramie.3 Ramie and hemp were used widely by commoners before cotton was produced in Korea.3 Indigo, described by the museum as the color of constancy, was popular during the Joseon dynasty with aristocrats and commoners alike, and blue skirts were part of a girl's dowry.3

Meaning and Status

Skirt volume signaled rank, with "more voluminous skirts reserved for women of higher rank."1 Color combinations of jeogori and chima indicated occasions and the wearer's social or marital status, and married women generally wore indigo chima.2,3

On This Site

Sources

  1. Hanbok: traditional Korean dress — Jenny Kim, Victoria and Albert Museum, updated 17 April 2024 (top and bottom pieces, Three Kingdoms skirt, flat cutting, and skirt volume by rank).
    Return to text (4 references)Reference 1 Reference 2 Reference 3 Reference 4
  2. Skirt (chima) — Victoria and Albert Museum, FE.541:2-1992, Lee Young Hee studio, Seoul, 1992 (construction, breast-height tie, storage, and color by occasion and status).
    Return to text (3 references)Reference 1 Reference 2 Reference 3
  3. Traditional womenswear (hanbok) — Victoria and Albert Museum, FE.55:1 to 4-1991, Korea, 1980 (ramie and hemp, indigo skirt, dowry, and married women's dress).
    Return to text (4 references)Reference 1 Reference 2 Reference 3 Reference 4