Things I Have Learned Today

The Saga of the Decorated Heoritti

When researching for a story, sometimes you go down some strange rabbit holes. For me, it was the bras from the Joseon period.

In my story, I had to delve deep into Joseon royal wedding rituals, court life and ranks, and, of course, fashion. I found pretty pictures to help me describe jeogori, soksot, chima, jangot, mujigi, baji, sinbal, beoseon, dangui, wonsam, and many more articles of clothing. However, there was one item that I had never heard of before that I saw mentioned but could find very little visual references of: the decorated heoritti.

Starting in the 16th century, the hanbok tops known as jeogori started getting shorter and shorter. They started out 78 cm in length measured from the shoulder but ended up at barely 20 cm by the end of the 19th century, basically right under the armpits. Luckily, the chima skirts rose as well, so everyone wasn't walking around with bare midriffs. Most skirts went from hugging the waist to right below the breasts, like some feminine version of Steve Urkel. There were some fancy versions that looked like a hybrid of a skirt and a tube top. Still this left a lot of... chest area exposed for most women.

Here is where the kisaeng courtesans stepped in. They were first to start wearing the 20 cm wide cloth belt that wrapped around their breasts called a heoritti, which basically means 'chest hider'. I find the name hilarious, for some reason. Later, upper-class women adopted wearing them. Heorimari corsets were also introduced to help some women achieve the figure they desired. While heoritti started out white, they began growing more decorated.

Decorated, you say? Tell me more. Was it flowers? Birds? Some elaborate form of embroidery pattern? As a writer, I knew I needed to know how they were decorated in case I had to describe them. Thus began my descent.

Most visual references that I found to heoritti could be traced back to a single blog entry (https://feedingmyprocrastination.wordpress.com/2013/05/24/the-joseon-fashion-show-the-joseon-lingerie-underwear-special-edition-part-1-2/), which showed a picture of a faded white heoritti. Found a Youtube clip from the film, "The Royal Tailor" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Em-SA0iZOww&t=202s) Still white. Not good enough. I was after the illusive decorated heoritti.

Then my search took a weird turn. While noble women and young ladies wore heoritti, married commoners did not. It's mentioned in Wikipedia on Toplessness (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toplessness#Korea). There are photographs (WARNING! National Geographic-esque nudity: https://zenkatsuo.livejournal.com/203368.html). Scholarly articles like 조선 여성의 '젖가슴 사진'을 둘러싼 기억의 정치 - 그녀들의 '미니저고리'가 '아들자랑'이 된 사연 (The Bare Breast Bragging about Having a Baby Boy －The Politics of Memory on the "Women's Breast Pictures" in Joseon) (Feminism, 2008: 4, pp. 125-157) hypothesized it was married commoners saying "Nyah. I gave birth to a son and will breastfeed him right in front of you to show off."

I had gone on a strange journey to find an image of a decorated heoritti and knew I had to stop. If I continued done this path, there was no telling where I would end up. I mean, it was all fascinating but there were other things I needed to research and write about.

Did I ever find a decorated heoritti? Actually, yes. Episode 1 of Mr. Queen from 1:03:26-1:03:40. "I am Joseon's first 'No Bra.'" Not even close, Kim So-Yong, not even close...