For Outside, Yoon Kim recounts how his Korean grandmother helped pioneer the industrial production of cotton flannel in postwar Seoul. It’s a moving family history, as well as a pointed look at today’s outdoor industry, which is still very white, particularly in leadership roles.
Sonia, now 31 years old, blossomed as a business owner and entrepreneur. Most of Baeekyang Gimo’s customers were wholesalers and garment manufacturers throughout Korea. Sonia took orders from small businesses in Seoul’s Pyeonghwa Market in the Dongdaemun district and sold large orders to garment factories in Daegu. Even the Korean military was using their flannel in standard-issue uniforms. Baeekyang Gimo was profitable in its first year. By the societal standards of the time, Sonia’s work was almost unheard of. Women in postwar Korea worked hard, but they toiled in the background: in fields, markets, or family shops where a husband or father was the face and the owner. Confucian tradition places a woman at the bottom of a social pyramid: under her father, her husband, and even her son, for life.
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