Jokki traditional clothing and magoja

Jokki traditional clothing and magoja

Jokki (조끼) is a type of vest while magoja is an outer jacket. Although jokki and magoja were created at the end of the Chosŏn Dynasty in which the Western culture began to affect Korea, the garments have been considered parts of traditional clothing. Each is additionally worn over jeogori for warmth and style. Magoja was an originally Manchu style clothing, but was introduced to Korea after Heungseon Daewongun, the father of King Gojong returned from his political exile in Manchuria in 1887. Magoja derived from magwae that he wore at that time to protect cold weather of the region. It was good to keep warmth and easy to wear, so that magoja became popular in Korea. It is also called "deot jeogori" (literally "an outer jeogori") or magwae.

Magoja does not have git, band of fabric that trims the collar, goreum (tying strings) unlike jeogori and durumagi (overcoat). Magoja was originally a male garment, but later became a unisex clothing. The magoja for men has seop (섶, overlapped column on the front) and its length is longer than women's magoja, so that its both sides of the bottom are open. A magoja is made of a silk and is adorned with one or two buttons which are usually made from amber. In a male magoja, buttons are attached to the right side on contrary to women's magoja.

At first, women wore the magoja for style rather than as a daily outfit and especially Kaeseong people used to wear it a lot. It is made of a silk and the color for women tends to be a neutral color to harmonize with other garments such as jeogori and chima which are worn together. In spring and autumn, a pastel tone is used for the women's magoja, so that wearers could wear it over a jeogori for style. As for men's magoja worn during spring and summer, jade, green, gray, dark grey were used.