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How to Choose Hanbok for the Lunar New Year

Hanbok or traditional Korean dress became a surprise fashion trend last year, with many young people going to work dressed in hanbok or visiting old palaces with friends.

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The Lunar New Year offers another great opportunity to get decked out in traditional garb. Here hanbok designer Yoon Eun-sook tells us how to choose the right combination.

It is hard to pinpoint definite colors that are trendy in hanbok fashion at the moment, as both pastel and vivid colors are popular. Colors that exude calm and sophistication are popular, but it is chroma, not the color, that matters more.

Customers tend to prefer colors with low chroma, which look a bit faded. For example in case of yellow, people tend to prefer mustard over forsythia.

With the growing popularity of modified hanbok adapted to better suit modern lifestyles, the sleeve opening and length of strings have decreased. Men's hanbok has generally become slimmer and more similar to western clothing. Trousers, which used to be tied around the waist, now have a belt.

There was a time when couples would wear matching colors, but this trend is disappearing to an extent and people these days match the color of men's trousers and women's strings or accessories, or they wear completely different colors and just maintain similar tone to avoid clashing.

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