Hanbok, Maedeup & 5Rs

 Have you ever seen a spacious hanbok shop, with one wall completely filled with vibrant, colorful fabrics? It’s truly breathtaking. "Color is a power that directly influences the soul." The hues of hanbok will remind you of these words by Wassily Kandinsky.  

I had that very experience in Korea in the spring of 2023 when I went to have a new hanbok made for my niece’s wedding. Traditional hanbok is crafted with meticulous attention to the harmony of colors, following the principles of yin-yang and the five elements*. The process involves carefully laying out and comparing dozens of fabric swatches—for the inner lining and outer layer of skirt and of jeogori, sleeve hems, and goreum—until the perfect combination is found.  

While watching this process, I was reminded of the hanboks I had received decades ago for my brothers’ weddings and my own. What a waste for these beautifully crafted garments to be worn just once for a special occasion, only to be stored away and forgotten, I thought. So, I brought those hanboks back to the U.S. with me and soon joined the Potomac Fiber Arts Guild (PFAG), named after the Potomac River that flows between Washington, D.C., and Northern Virginia, where I live.

To make my hanboks more wearable in daily life, I transformed the long skirts into comfortable, below-the-knee-long, elastic-waist skirts and used the leftover fabric to sew vests. My wedding hanbok, with its green jeogori and red skirt, became a festive two-piece outfit perfect for Christmas parties. The blue skirt adorned with gold patterns was repurposed into a skirt and vest for Korean literary events. My engagement hanbok’s pink skirt and my mother’s summer hanbok’s purple skirt were altered into a matching set I now wear to social gatherings.

Thanks to their striking colors and exquisite fabrics, my repurposed hanbok pieces have received much admiration in the U.S., giving me opportunities to share the beauty of Korean culture while also promoting sustainable practices. This reuse aligns perfectly with the 5Rs—Refuse (avoiding environmentally harmful products), Reduce (minimizing waste), Reuse (finding new uses for old items), Repair or Rot (mending or composting), and Recycle—helping to address the growing environmental crisis in a meaningful way.

After making my clothes, I began creating various items with the leftover scraps. Recalling the beauty of wind chimes that used to hang beneath the eaves of traditional Korean hanok homes in my childhood, I crafted one myself. Then, realizing that a smaller version of the same design could be turned into earrings, I made those as well. Wondering what other accessories or ornaments I could create, I remembered the embroidery lessons from my middle school in Korea. Using small pieces of linen as a base, I embroidered designs onto the hanbok fabric and fashioned it into a brooch.  

Next, I set out to make a handbag. However, the delicate, lightweight hanbok fabric didn’t pair well with leather straps—it was like mixing water and oil. That’s when I realized I needed to learn Maedeup, Korean traditional knotting techniques, to craft the perfect strap.  

While making vests, I had already become fascinated by the art of Maedeup, which has been intertwined with hanbok for over a thousand years. I thought that learning Maedeup would allow me to create beautiful buttons, but I had no idea what the materials would be needed and called, let alone how to find them in the U.S.  

Just then, a Korean weaver living nearby handed me a collection of Maedeup materials, saying, “These days, you can learn Maedeup from YouTube—why not give it a try?” She told me that she had kept them despite being unable to use them or to throw them away.

Once at a PFAG monthly gathering, a textile dyeing expert gave a lecture. A blue-eyed, white-haired woman spoke about indigo dye, referencing Japanese books and multiple trips to Japan, enthusiastically praising Japan’s natural dyeing history and techniques. It saddened me to realize that no one seemed to know about Korea’s natural dyeing techniques, even older than Japan’s. Determined to confirm that, I visited the Korean Natural Dyeing Museum in Naju during my trip to Korea in the spring of 2024.

Natural dyeing is the process of extracting pigments from materials found in nature to create a spectrum of colors. In Korea, this practice is believed to date back to prehistoric times. Traditional Korean clothing uses only natural elements—dyes, mordants, and textiles. They have historically dyed cotton, ramie, hemp, and silk with natural dyes. For instance, indigo plants produce deep blues, sappanwood yields vibrant reds, and persimmon tannins create warm browns. Koreans also employed animal-based dyes like squid ink, as well as mineral-based pigments, such as yellow ochre and iron oxide. The mordants, which help fix the colors to fabric, were also made through various natural processes.

at the Korean Natural Dyeing Museum in Naju which has a long history of Indigo dye

This all-natural clothing is harmless to both humans and nature. We must remember that each time we run a washing machine, synthetic clothing releases over 700,000 microplastics and toxic dyes into our waterways, harming aquatic life. Around the world, massive mountains of discarded clothing are piling up in South America, Southeast Asia, and Africa, and synthetic fibers can take over 200 years to fully decompose. It is reported that fast fashion—produced with immense water pollution and carbon emissions—results in half of all garments being discarded within a year of purchase.

It is time to preserve, modernize, and promote Korea’s traditional natural textiles and dyeing techniques, not only to celebrate our cultural heritage but also as a crucial step toward environmental sustainability.

* (note) 음양오행 (韱陽五行 Yin-Yang and the Five Elements) is a fundamental concept that explains the interplay of natural elements and cosmic balance and that forms the foundation for many fields in traditional Korea, including medicine, architecture, and fashion. At the heart of Korean cosmology, the principle of Yin-Yang represents the duality and balance of opposing forces: dark and light, passive and active, feminine and masculine. Complementing this system is five elements and each of them is associated with a primary color and direction: Wood (木) - Blue representing growth, vitality, and the east, Fire (火) - Red symbolizing passion, energy, and the south, Earth (土) - Yellow for stability, nourishment, and the center, Metal (金) - White for purity, righteousness, and the west, and Water (水) - Black for wisdom, depth, and the north.