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Park Sul-nyeo has played a leading role in making hanbok a garment that can be worn conveniently by many people in their everyday lives and creating new trends for it, in addition to making lots of hanbok for the country’s top film stars. 20 years ago, she ran a hanbok store in Gunja-dong, Seoul. Her fame spread rapidly through word of mouth. Announcers at KBS started using her works on a lease basis. It is not an exaggeration to say that most top film stars of the country have had their hanbok made by her at least once. Gracefully curved lines of her hanbok have made huge impact.
Born third among the seven children of poor parents in Seocheon, South Chungcheong, she started working at a textile factory at an early age to send her younger siblings to school. When she was 24, she made up her mind to embark on a career as a hanbok designer. She left her parents, went to Seoul, and managed to find a position as an apprentice under a designer named Lee Ri-ja. Having started what she had long desired to do, she was happy. She was quite determined. She worked until 4:00 am and slept for only five hours.
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Now, she is recognized as one of the country’s best hanbok designers and runs a store in a 1,220㎡ sized 4-story building in Cheongdam-dong, one of the busiest business districts in Seoul. She thinks that it is her duty as a hanbok designer to globalize hanbok and have it accepted as a first-rate garment worldwide. As a result of such efforts, her works have become favorite items at fashion shows hosted by the wives of foreign envoys in Seoul. Besides, she is doing her best to distribute hanbok and make it convenient for ordinary people to wear in their everyday lives under the motto of,“Making Beautiful Hanbok Suitable for Outings.”
She said, “Many people think that hanbok is something only for special occasions rather than for everyday life, with its trailing skirt and the short length of the jacket. However, what is on their mind is the ones worn during the final 200 to 300 years of the Joseon Period. They should realize that hanbok has changed continuously throughout the history of the Korean nation, i.e. for more than 5,000 years. Just in early days of the Joseon Period, the jacket extended down to the waist, and hanbok was more convenient to wear in everyday life, according to relics and relevant literature.”
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What she pursues is not a version of hanbok that cannot be accepted as belonging to mainstream hanbok, but one that ordinary people can wear in their everyday lives as they have done over the past 5,000 years She clearly remembers the pleasant shock she felt when she saw an item of hanbok dating back to the early era of the Joseon Period at the Seokjuseon Memorial Folk Arts Museum. It was very finely sewn and showed a refined design. She finds herself always trying to find new answers to the question of “What is hanbok?” through incessant research. She expressed her hope that hanbok will be worn by people all over the world in their everyday lives someday.
- Curriculum vitae [ Park Sul-nyeo ]
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- Representative, Park Sul-nyeo Hanbok
- Hanbok designer
