Meongbu(noble ladies) were the class who had led the hair style of Joseon women. Focusing on the point, this paper has the purpose to furnish its theoretical background and to reproduce the main hair styles.
The theoretical background was classified ...
Meongbu(noble ladies) were the class who had led the hair style of Joseon women. Focusing on the point, this paper has the purpose to furnish its theoretical background and to reproduce the main hair styles.
The theoretical background was classified into three: Age, Social Status, and Hair Style. For the reproduction, some limitations were presented, and 7pieces were reproduced along with historical evidences.
The hair style of noble ladies in Joseon Dynasty changed in accordance with the change of age. Until King Taejong, the noble ladies usually had the high hair style using the byeonbal(pigtail) and gache(wig) which was nearly same as that of Goryeo Dynasty. Since King Seongjong, they used to add the gache to enrich their hair more. As this phenomenon required much money to purchase the gaches, it was considered as an extravagance, and some writings to deplore it was recorded in the official history book of Joseon.
But the bold behavior of high class women about the hair styling continued even after the Imjin Japanese Invasion and Byeongja Chinese Invasion. During the reign of King Sukjong, it became prevalent in Joseon society. Moreover, those times the conflict among the political parties became severe, and the powerful families tried to demonstrate their power to others through the hair style.
Eventually, King Yeongjo ordered to prohibit the gache for the first time in the history, but this coercive policy was not successful. After him, King Jeongjo also prohibited the gache. The gache began to disappear during the next king, Sunjo, and the jjokmeori(tied up hair) came to replace the gache.
Myeongbu can be roughly classified into two: Inner Myeongbu and Outer Myeongbu. Their Pumgye(Official Rank) was divided into 7 like the officials and received the honorable treatment by the government. In the inner myeongbu, the women with the rank of higher than 5th were the royal concubines, who received the peerage without any duties. The works in the palace were mainly carried out by the sanggungs(higher court ladies), who were in the 5th rank, and lower court ladies.
The outer myeongbu included married princesses, nanny of king, mother of queen, and wives of officials. They received the peerage but no salaries.
Inner and outer myeongbu were not compared every time but, in general, the inner myeongbu led the hair style and outer myeongbu used to follow it.
The hairstyle of myeongbu changed a lot due to the prohibition of gache. What changed most was that the jjok became bigger and the diverse hair ornaments such as binyeo came to develop. They were not the ordinary level. The ornaments were as elaborated as art works, and the expenses for them was no less than those for gaches.
The reproduction was made within the limit that this kind of theoretic background supports it. As this study was purported to reproduce the ancient hairs most clearly on the sound ground of theory, the reproduction was performed while showing all its procedures with photos from all sides.