Ok, so let's first talk about the hanbok the Sanggoongs and Na-in's wore (although what I'm about to say here will be applied to the royal hanbok too). I just cringe every time I look at them, there's really nothing I can say that I like about them. My biggest bif with these outfits is that the fabric is not cut correctly, and thus the hanbok ends up looking big and frumpy on the wearers. Just look at the Na-in in the second picture. For those of you who have seen the show you guys KNOW she's not that fat and her head definitely isn't that small, yet that fabric is cut so horribly. And y'know I think the quality of the fabric they used for those particular outfits are kinda bulky, and thus adding to the overall frumpy-ness of the outfit.
Now let's compare the previous examples to these caps I took from Dae Jang Geum. Every hanbok used in DJG is very form fitting and not bulky at all. Compare the Na-in outfits to the Na-in outfits in DJG and you'll know what I mean. Also the fabric is more appealing, now whether or not it's realistically appropriate I don't know, but aesthetically they're more appealing.
A little point I wanted to bring up was the width of the ties on the sanggoongs top piece in Goong. For some reason the ties are really thin and it gives the impression that they're sewn at a lower position, even though they are virtually in the same spot compared to the DJG costumes. The reason why this is a problem for me is that it gives the impression that the sangoong who's wearing the outfit in Goong has sagging boobs, when really they can have pretty slammin' bodies. Now I may be the only one who thinks this, but I just had to point it out. I probably have planted that seed of thought in your head by now haven't I? Hehe I don't feel guilty about that at all. Anyways, I prefer the thicker ties used in DJG just because they're more aesthetically appealing then those super thin ones.
Ok so now we get to the royal hanbok. Everybody's favorite. 9_9. This is where I get really ticked off at the wardrobe department for Goong. Granted, there are some _very_ beautiful colors employed here. There's way more variety in color and richness compared to Dae Jang Geum. But I much prefer lack of color and have outfits that actually fit together properly on an actress then have a lushness of color (ugh, is lushness even a word?). Now you people are probably wondering "what is this girl on? How can she possibly think Goong's hanbok aren't formfitting? Aren't hanbok supposed to be basically one size fit all?" Hehe, well you'd think so wouldn't you? It is my understanding that hanbok are supposed to be a little more modest and very simplistic, and therefore anybody can look good in them. But cut the fabric wrong and anybody can look fugly. What I find so wrong about the royal hanbok in Goong is that they are too long, too flared out at the bottom, the width isn't wide enough, and overall just too big and bulky. Like the sanggoong and na-in outfits, the overall largeness of the outfits makes them loook really weird and fat. I think the worst part, is that when you look at these ladies from the back, the exagerrated flares at the bottom in conjuction with the exagerated length makes their butts look big. Now I'm not an expert in traditional design, maybe the hanbok really were supposed to be cut like that, but visually speaking it's just horrendous. Here is a picture of Chae-gyung that I think best expresses everything I dislike about Goong's royal wardrobe.
Ok, now let's compare Dae Jang Geum royal fashion to Goong. The first two pictures are actually of a Na-in who became the king's concubine in the show. So even if she's not wearing 'queen's' attire, she is wearing something that women of higher status are entitled to wear. They're very similar to the royal hanbok, and the point I'm trying to make is just look at the cut and length of the fabric. In both the concubine's outfit and the queen's outfit, the width is pretty decent, going across the full body length and they don't extend down to far. Also, the cut is much more angular and not too flared out. Oh, another thing I noticed is that on the queen's outfit in Dae Jang Geum, she had an extra tier of gold leafing on her skirt compared to the skirts in Goong. I actually like the look of the double tier better than the single row on the Goong skirts, but I don't know if this is acurate since I have seen more examples using the single row so eh.
Oh here's one of my favorite topics: hair. The stylists in Goong ended up making the chignon pieces bulky and awkward looking on the actresses and there was no symmetry employed at all. This was a lot worse for the actress who played Yul's mother because her headpiece was a lot bigger. Now if you look at the Dae Jang Geum headpieces, there's more symmetry involved since the hair is more circular rather than oblong like it is in Goong. And actually bigger looks better believe it or not, if you look at the Dae Jang Geum queen's headpiece it's not so bulky because the braids are smaller, but they do another loop around so it's a little bigger. Here's a better shot of Yul's mom so you can see how badly proportioned that piece looks on her head. Heck, even the DJG sanggoong's had way better hair than Yul's mom.
Even lower court ladies had better hair in Dae Jang Geum compared to the actual royal family in Goong. As you can see there's much better circular symmetry and nothing looks bulky at all. (these two beautiful ladies btw are Han Sanggoong and Min Sanggoong. Min Sanggoong friggin rules).
Ok, so here is a backview of the head pieces. I'm actually not sure which is more historically accurate, or if both styles were used since I have seen a wide variety of methods used to hold the pieces together, but once again I must defer to the DJG style. The ribbon wrapping used in Goong is bulky and actually looks like the lazy-man's way of finishing the job. And hey, I'm pretty lazy myself, but if you're going through such great lengths to make something elaborate you might as well go all the way.
I will give one credit to Goong for doing a good job on the royal headpiece Chae-gyung had to wear for her wedding. If you scroll down and check out the pics I took for the DJG coronation, the head piece for Goong is rather nice. And I have seen other versions of it and I'd say the Goong head piece is the best. Perfect size, doesn't look too bulky and it has the right amount of symmetry.
(a little sidenote, I'm really sorry for the poor quality of the Dae Jang Geum caps. I'm working with a MQ rip, and I do own the dvds. I'm just too lazy to rip them for this project =p) Ok so now we're gonna look at the ceremonial attire. Now I'm pretty sure there's a significance between the red gown the queen wears in DJG and the blue gown Chae-gyung wears, but I don't know what that is. But coming from a visual perspective, the red gown pwns the blue gown. (for a better shot of the red gown, check out this picture from a drama called "ladies of the palace" here) Granted there's more detail placed into the blue gown, but the colors work a heckuva lot better in the red gown. Maybe if that shade of blue wasn't so gah I'd like it better, but it's not so I don't =p. Also, it appears as if the choice in fabric is a bit different between the two shows, and if I were to pick one I'd (of course) pick DJG. For some reason the fabric in the Goong gown doesn't flow as freely and that makes things (you guessed it): big, bulky, and not pretty. Also, if you look closely, there is a difference between the ceremonial attire of the King in DJG and the outfit Shin wears. I personally like the DJG outfit better because a) the colors are darker, b) it's more free flowing and not close to the body like Shin's, and c) the black boots vs red boots on Shin. Red+red does not go, and I cringe everytime I look down at Shin's feet x_@.
I just want to take a second have a closer look at the head piece Shin wears. Now if you compare it to the head piece the DJG king wears (once again sorry for the cap, I have no idea how to detag pictures, so that ticker thingie stays =/) the obvious choice would have to go to DJG. Shin's head piece looks like something a 5th grader made for a school play. Take some cardboard, paste on some black construction paper to it and glue some gold threading on it and finish it off with a whole bunch of beads. It's way too huge and makes Shin look ridiculous. Now if you look at the King in Dae Jang Geum, his head piece has much shorter bead strings and there's more gold embossing on his head piece. Now wouldn't you agree with me that Shin's head piece looks down right craptacular?
Ok, now that I've got all of the above out of the way, I will admit that Goong has had its moments. Besides the large variety of colors used in the royal hanbok there have been a couple of outfits worth mentioning. First is the outfit Chae-gyung's mother wore to the wedding. Overall very nice, good colors beautiful flow in the fabri and best of all it's proportioned well! I also loved Chae-gyung's palace entry gown. Nothing that bad I can say about it at all. Just one little critique I do have to say is that when she takes off the top layers when she's sitting down to study, the skirt piece seems to stick straight and there's no natural flow from her body to the bottom of the skirt =/. I also loved the gown she wore for the hapbang scene in 13 (aside form the bulky hair), but I'm not including a picture of it cuz I'm lazy =ppppp
And finally, these outfits are kinda off topic, but considering the nature of goong I have to mention these outfits. For some reason the wardrobe department did not refer to the manhwa's modified royal hanbok designs AT ALL. With one exception: Chae-gyung's birthday party dress. That one actually was pretty straight out of the manhwa and pretty dang gorgeous. But the rest of the time we got stuff pretty similar to the second picture, and actually it gets way worse than that. I have no idea why, but we don't see anything of this or this nature. It was really disappointing And I just don't get why they didn't do it. It's not like they had to make up their own (lame) designs, they could've just looked in the manhwa and boom it's there! I guess whatever reason there is, it's the same reason the show got crappy midway up until episode 23 >>. But that's a different story =P
