Binyeo.

If you watch any Joseon period Kdramas you will notice the hair ornaments worn by the women. Not only did the women have beautiful hair they also frequently decorated their tresses with fabulous hair ornamentation. The most common one is called a binyeo and it is used to keep the chignon in place.

Binyeos were made out of all sorts of materials and the decorations on one end could be very elaborate. One could safely assume that if your binyeo was made of gold and featured gemstones and pearls you were probably pretty upper class. For westerners I think we notice that the hair decorations are not symmetrical. They are 'stabbed' through the chignons and the 'handle' end is typically to the right of the wearer's head. Occasionally you'll see other ornamentation on the other side but those are actually separate pieces of hair decorations.

For those devotees of Mr Sunshine you might remember that the young Eugene carved his mother a wooden binyeo and saved it throughout his life as a very special keepsake.

The other commonly seen hair decoration is the thing they clipped into their center part at the top of their head. I haven't been able to figure out the correct name for that piece. Anyone know?

Pat here. Baby crown? They’re always more ornate as you go up the ladder of who is ruling. For example, the empress gets a pretty good looking one. The ladies in waiting, not so much.