Jeopsari — Joseon’s Pull-Over Raincoat

One more for the monsoon series: the jeopsari, Joseon’s pull-over raincoat. If the galmo we introduced was the hat’s hat, the jeopsari is the poncho — it covers you whole.

The jeopsari is rain gear woven tight from straw and thatch grass. Pulled over the head, it covers shoulders and back at once and leaves both hands free — which made it the busiest thing in the paddies during rainy rice-planting season. Folded flat when not in use, it takes its name from the Korean for “to fold.”

Hung up, it changes your mind about it. The tiered pleats and angular shoulders read less like woven rainwear than a lampshade — a silhouette somewhere near Isamu Noguchi’s Akari. That a farmhand’s work garment from a century ago turns out to be the most sculptural form in the room is the happy reversal of folk objects.

So we recommend hanging it from the ceiling. Draped low by a stairwell or window, light seeps between the straw and the space softens; in summer, just looking at it seems to give off the scent of dry grass. (If you make it a real lamp, cool bulbs only, please — this one is grass, too.)

Jeopsari in the Museum Collection

Jeopsari from the Museum of Straw and Life’s storerooms. Comparing the pleats and shoulder lines, each a little different by region and hand, is a quiet pleasure.

Reference images: e-Museum (emuseum.go.kr) — collection of the Museum of Straw and Life. Click an image to open the museum record.

The pleats that once shed rain now filter light. A monsoon tool becoming a summer lamp — this is why we love old things. :-)