Princess Deokhye’s Wide Skirt with Gold-patterned Decorative Hem

This ceremonial long skirt is one of the clothing artifacts from the royal Joseon household left behind after Princess Deokhye, daughter of Emperor Gojong, stayed in Japan. The Bunka Gakuen Costume Museum in Tokyo, Japan re-donated this jacket to the National Palace Museum of Korea in 2015 after it had been given to the Costume Museum by Imperial Prince Yeong and his consort.
This skirt is an undergarment that matches the women’s ceremonial robes of the Imperial household of the Korean Empire such as pheasant-patterned robes, coats, and long jacket. It is wider and longer than ordinary skirts, attached with a single decorative skirt hem adorned with gold embroidery or gold-foil printing at the bottom. As part of an outfit with a patterned green-silk long jacket, this lined wide skirt was made of red silk as the outer fabric and pink ramie as a lining. On the decorative skirt hem, Chinese characters such as “福 (fortune), 百 (hundred), literally meaning completeness, 歲 (harvest), 壽 (longevity), or 男 (boy)” and designs of various plants such as pomegranate, lychees, and spirit mushrooms are printed in gold.