Hair styles of the Joseon period imply how aesthetic consciousness and women's lives were in the traditional society. They may be a valuable cultural heritage that prompts us to reflect on modern beauty trends that always put Western and latest hair s...
Hair styles of the Joseon period imply how aesthetic consciousness and women's lives were in the traditional society. They may be a valuable cultural heritage that prompts us to reflect on modern beauty trends that always put Western and latest hair styles first.
Recently, however, works of mass media, especially historic dramas and movies, are raising public attention to traditional hair styles. Accordingly, there are an increasing number of theoretical researches on traditional hair styles and efforts to modernize them.
The purpose of this study is to propose how to modernize traditional hair styles. For the purpose, this researcher worked on making hair ornaments using hairs as their main material like flower-shaped binyeo and dwikoji. And then, the researcher tried applying those ornaments to unmarried and married hairs whose style is basically traditional but modern. Creating hair ornaments that are still traditional but made of the unique material, that is, hair and applying them to hairs of traditional style that shows the Korean nation's own aesthetic sense are expected to contribute to broadening the horizon of the beauty culture in creative and practical, but basically traditional ways.
This study consists of three chapters, except the parts of introduction and conclusion.
In Chapter II, this study examined the traditionality of ornaments based on fake flowers dubbed as gahwa, discussed the concept of hair ornaments and researched literatures of the Joseon period that contained records about hair styles and ornaments of that time. The ancient publications that were referenced include True 『Records of Joseon Dynasty』, 『Akhak Gwyebeom』,『Cheongjanggwan Jeonseo』,『Jeungbo Munheon Bigo』and 『Ojuyeon Mujang Jeonsango』 that contain historical descriptions regarding folk traditions and customs.
In Chapter III, this study showed hair ornaments that the researcher newly designed and manufactured with hairs, seeking to expand the coverage of the beauty industry and create a new value through the modernization of tradition. The materials of hair ornaments that this researcher made are aluminium and hairs. Of these, the metal was used for the body of the ornaments. And the other material was used for the decorative part of the ornaments which was traditional flower-shaped and whose material was cut hairs that were easily obtained from hair shops.
In Chapter IV, this researcher designed hair styles for marriage and the marriage host that could become unmarried and married women, respectively. In this case, the researcher used traditional hair styles as the motive. And then, the designs were added with hair ornaments, developed in the previous chapter, to be modern hair styles, but with basic traditionality. In the chapter, the researcher treated unmarried women's hairs in five styles, chignon or chokmeori, hairdo or saeangmeori, braided hairs or ddaeunmeori, tremeori and nangja ssanggye. And the researcher treated married women's hairs in five styles, too, chokmeori, gache meori, eonjeun meori, tremeori and eoyumi.
In modernizing traditional hair styles, the combination of those hair styles and the hair ornaments was conducted in several types. In other words, this study showed the examples of hair styles that were ornamented with gache and ornamented with nothing. To make better understood difference between the two hair styles, different models who had long and short hairs, respectively were used.
Results of the study can be summarized as follows.
First, creating hair ornaments by using hairs as their main material expanded the coverage of the beauty business to open a new area, that is, hair art.
Second, the hair ornaments that were developed here have the possibility to be cultural goods because they are not only traditional, but also practical.
And third, the study came true a new value creation through the modernization of tradition that meant redesigning traditional hair styles in modern ways.
Traditional hair styles of the Korean nation are a heritage of beauty culture that is highly aesthetic. This study tried modernizing traditional hair styles with no loss of basic traditionality and developing hair ornaments with hairs as their main material. These moves may be seen as a new value creation through the modernization of tradition. Thus, this study is meaningful in that it showed the will to create a unique culture on one hand and succeed the tradition of the Korean nation on the other hand.