Abstract
Soek(Xi) was the highest ranked shoe that was worn with the primary formal dress in East Asian countries including ancient Korea and China. This article examined Joseon's Seok as discussed in previous studies, and it explored factors such as the wearers' status, wearing situations, its morphology, its materials, and its colors in the Great Han Empire period (1897~1910), and then extracted three morphological characteristics of the Korean Seok to examine its origin. The results of the study are as follows. For women, the Seok in the Great Han Empire period was worn with Won-sam(圓衫) and No-eui(露衣) as well as Jeok-eui(翟衣), and hence its range of wearing was extensive. Also, red Seok was worn with deep red colored Dae-sam(大衫)-styled Jeok-eui in the Joseon period(1392~1897), and blue Seok with deep blue Jeok-eui in the Great Han Empire period. This suggests the possibility that wearing of deep blue Jeok-eui occurred after 1906 in terms of the use of blue Seok. As for its morphology, its leg-less form was maintained into the late Joseon period, and there were no great changes in its name. The characteristics of the Korean Seok's morphological structure consisted of a shoe leg, the wood-less bottom and pearl ornament. As a result of the examination of the origin of those characteristics, it has been clarified that the form in which Gu, Eok, Jun(純), are attached in the structure with a shoe leg originated from the combination of Hwa(靴) and Li(履) after the two types of shoes were alternately worn in the Song (宋) period. Also, it was confirmed that the woodless bottom appeared between the periods from Wei Jin Northern and Southern Dynasties(魏晉南北朝) to Sui(隋), and the pearl ornament occurred in the Jin(金) period.
