Where Disney and Hallyu collide: Fashioning transcultural selves through hanbok sartorial fandom

Abstract

This research explores the cultural significance behind the popularity of hanbok, examining how fans express cultural identity, gender, and nationality through sartorial fandom. By analyzing Koreanified Disney Princesses and non-Korean “hanbok princesses” on social media, this study shows how performers from different nationalities use hanbok to express fan interests, materialize affective affinities, fashion transcultural selves, and envision a cosmopolitan Korea. In Disneyland, Korean fans enact “cultural Disneybounding,” creating a fannish self-brand while promoting Korean culture in transnational fan settings. In contrast, hanbok princesses, primarily non-Korean tourists, use hanbok to leverage fan identities and actualize transcultural selves. They also participate in repositioning hanbok in global fashion trends while reaffirming Orientalist logics that feminize and Other Korean culture. By analyzing online discourse, this article considers how sartorial practices help navigate intersecting identities and fan affiliations, revealing the dual processes of reorienting and re-Orientalizing in sartorial fandoms.

Keywords

sartorial fandom hanbok Disneybounding hallyu transcultural fandom pop cosmopolitan reorienting re-Orientalizing cosplay

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