It's been a while (or has it?) since my last post. I've been busy moving.
I first planned to write about the gat, but decided to widen the scope a little to the hats worn by yangban officials. And I'll do it by following one day in the life of Lord Cho Hak-ju, the villain and the most powerful man in the Netflix original series Kingdom.
Gwanmo (冠帽)
: A hat worn by government officials in the past.
In the Joseon dynasty, a hat was not just an accessory. It was a symbol that showed a man's status, age, place, and manners. There were so many kinds that Westerners who visited Joseon after it opened its ports in the late 19th century called it "the Kingdom of Hats."
What's in this post
1. Heungnip
: The face of a scholar.
This is what most people call the gat.
The gat was the yangban's signature hat for going out. Only adult men who had gone through the coming-of-age ceremony and tied their hair into a topknot (sangtu) could wear it. Over the topknot, the hair was tidied with a manggeon headband, a tanggeon cap was placed on top, and the gat went over that. The gat meant "I am now an adult," and it was a symbol of uigwan jeongje (dressing properly), something every man was expected to keep in a Confucian society. It was said that a scholar, however poor, would never step outside without his gat.
Made from horsehair and finely split bamboo, the gat was light and see-through. If anything, this transparency reveals the neat and restrained beauty of the Joseon scholar.
In the early Joseon period, hats such as the bangnip, pyeongnyangja, and chorip came first, and the gat took its present form from the mid-Joseon period on. The width of its brim (yangtae) grew and shrank with the fashion of the times, and men showed off their taste and personality with paeyeong, hat strings threaded with beads.
The trend only grew flashier. Amber, coral, agate, tortoiseshell—every precious material you can think of ended up dangling from a hat string. King Jeongjo finally had enough. "Amber hat strings are meant for high-ranking officials," he lamented, "yet these days extravagance grows worse by the day. Civil, military, or appointed by family merit, high-ranking or the lowest clerk of the seventh rank and below, no one will wear anything but amber." But not even a king could stop the hipsters of Joseon.
2. Jeongjagwan
: A scholar who stays composed even at home.
Village schoolteachers (hunjang) and yangban wore it in daily life. The jeongjagwan was an everyday hat worn indoors, especially in the sarangchae (the men's quarters), when receiving guests or reading. Woven from horsehair, it has peaks shaped like the Chinese character 山 (mountain), stacked in two or three tiers. The top is open, and the more tiers it has, the more formal it looks. It was worn over the tanggeon, after the topknot and the manggeon.
The jeongjagwan reflects the Confucian idea of sindok (愼獨): keeping yourself in check even when no one is watching. That is also why so many portraits of yangban show them in a jeongjagwan. They chose this hat when they wanted to show their learning and character rather than their official rank. It was widely loved by yangban from the mid-Joseon period to the end of the dynasty.
3. Samo
: The mark of a man in government service.
It has a two-tiered body, low in front and high at the back, with wings (gak) on both sides. The shape of the wings changed over time: long and narrow in early Joseon, they became shorter, wider, and rounder in later years. The samo was the hat officials wore with the dallyeong, their work robe, and it came to stand for public office itself. It was worn at court and on duty. In other words, the jeongjagwan showed "me, the scholar," while the samo showed "me, the official."
In late Joseon, commoners were allowed to wear the samo as a groom's hat. On his wedding day, and only then, a groom could put on the samo and the gwandae belt, together known as samo-gwandae. On the biggest day of his life, he got to borrow an official's ceremonial outfit for a little while. The custom lives on today.
4. How to Wear Them
The basic steps
1) Tie the topknot (sangtu): Pull the hair up to the crown of the head and twist it into a knot.
2) Insert the donggot: Fix the topknot with a hairpin called a donggot so it won't come loose.
3) Put on the manggeon: Wrap a horsehair band around the forehead to tidy up stray hairs. The material of the small rings (gwanja) on the manggeon sometimes showed the wearer's rank.
4) Put on the tanggeon: Place a low horsehair cap over the topknot. At home, men sometimes went about in just the tanggeon.
The final step, depending on the situation
At home, put the jeongjagwan on over the tanggeon.
When going to the office, put the samo on over the manggeon.
And finally, when going out, put the gat on over the tanggeon.
Like this.
