Free Korean dress exhibition in Daegu — closes 27 September

Most of what survives of Korean court and formal dress is either a photograph with no colour in it or a single garment in a storeroom, separated from the rest of the outfit it belonged to. This exhibition puts both halves back together. On one side are paintings by Kwon Oh-chang, an artist who has spent fifty years reconstructing historical figures in the clothes they actually wore; on the other are the surviving garments themselves, including a Joseon-era jacket excavated from a royal grandchild's tomb and a set of five-colour overcoats that belonged to the family of Korea's last crown prince. It closes on 27 September, and it costs nothing to see.

What you are actually looking at

The museum's own announcement counts 121 lots comprising 137 objects on display, of which 80 are Kwon's painted portraits. The paintings are not decorative reconstructions made up after the fact: 17 of the roughly 100 officially approved state portraits of historical Koreans are his work, produced under the same research rules that apply to a museum reconstruction. The show is arranged in three parts — the artist's working method, then rulers and imperial family members whose faces survive only in monochrome, then everyday and ceremonial clothing including a child's robe painted at full scale alongside the real thing.

The one date that will waste your trip

Korea's autumn holiday falls in the exhibition's last week, and Korean national museums close on the day of Chuseok itself. Daegu National Museum shuts on Mondays, on 1 January, and on the day of Seollal and of Chuseok — which in 2026 means Friday 25 September. If you are travelling around Korea during the holiday and planning a museum day, that Friday is the one to spend somewhere else.

Is it worth going if you read no Korean?

Honestly, it depends on what you came for. This is a show you can read with your eyes: a painting of a person in full costume hung next to the surviving garment, repeated through three rooms. That comparison needs no caption. What you will miss without Korean is the detailed labelling — who each figure was, which parts of an outfit were reconstructed from documents rather than survivals, and the symbolism embroidered into children's clothes, which the third section is built around. The museum's fixed-timetable guided tours are Korean-only. English and Japanese tours are possible but have to be booked by phone at least two weeks ahead, so they are not something you can arrange on the day.

• Korean guided tours start in front of the information desk on the first floor at 10 and 11 am and 1, 2, 3 and 4 pm, and last about 40 minutes.
• English or Japanese tours: phone +82 53-760-8582 or 8583 at least two weeks before your visit. Availability depends on the guides' schedule.
• The museum's website has English, Chinese and Japanese versions, so you can check closures before you travel.
• Admission to the permanent galleries is free as well, so the visit costs nothing beyond the trip out to Suseong-gu.

Getting there

The museum sits in Suseong-gu, on the eastern side of Daegu, away from the downtown grid most visitors stay in. Take Daegu Metro Line 2 to Manchon Station (만촌역), leave by exit 3 and change to a city bus; the museum lists routes 234, 349, 449, 524 and several Suseong and circular services. If you drive, the indoor car park has 184 spaces and is free while the museum is open, though the museum itself asks visitors to use public transport because it fills up.