보자기
Wrap, tie and give,
the Korean way.
Bojagi is the square of cloth Koreans have used for centuries to carry, cover, store and give. Learn the wraps, the knots and the patchwork, and where each one comes from.
Three things to know.
Wrap
Lay the bojagi as a diamond, showing side down. Bring the corners up over what you are giving.
The wraps ›Close
Tie twice, never once. For a wedding gift, no knot at all: a paper band reading 謹封 seals it.
The ties ›Make
A jogakbo is pieced from scraps with seams that look the same on both sides, so it glows against the light.
The seams ›Featured wrap
Wedding box wrap
The red double cloth wrapped, without a knot, around the 함 box of letter and silks the groom's family sends before a wedding.
- For
- Wedding: groom's family sends the 함 (채단 silks, 혼서지 letter) to the bride's home before the wedding
- Wraps
- Lacquered or paper ham box
- Cloth
- laid as a diamond
Explore the catalog.
역사
Wrapped for luck.
보자기 is 褓 ('wrapping cloth') plus suffixes; plain 보 was the older word, and the form 보자기 is first written down only in the 1890s. No one knows when wrapping cloths began; the Samguk yusa (compiled in Goryeo, 1280s) tells how Gaya's founder came down from the sky in a golden box wrapped in red cloth, but that is legend, not a record of practice. The oldest surviving bojagi is an embroidered late-Goryeo cloth in the Jeonju City Museum, probably a sutra wrapper. In Joseon, sumptuary rules reached even wrapping cloths: in 1408 a servant's yellow bo, the Chinese emperor's colour, led to two officials' exile. The court ordered bojagi to fixed sizes (상방정례, 1752) and logged them in 발기 inventories and wedding 의궤; these single-piece silk and ramie 궁보 contrast with 민보, the household cloths that women sewed from scraps and embroidered at home. Wrapping something was also thought to keep its 복 (fortune) inside, which is why wedding gifts were always wrapped. Everyday use faded after the 1950s, but collectors such as Huh Dong-hwa from the 1960s, museum exhibitions from the 1980s, and today's artists and biennial Korea Bojagi Forum (since 2012) recast bojagi as art.
Read the history ›