A white jacket worn with a blue skirt, as seen here, was the dress of a married woman. Traditionally a woman of comfortable means would wear an undyed white ramie jacket, an indigo-dyed skirt of ramie, and under-garments also of undyed ramie. Ramie (a fine fibre derived from the shrub Boehmeria nivea) is an extremely finely woven and delicate type of cloth. Together with hemp, ramie was used widely by commoners before cotton was produced in Korea. At the royal household, however, it was rarely used for outer garments, but mainly for underwear. Instead silk fabrics of superior quality were woven exclusively for the royal household. Indigo, the colour of constancy and symbolising east was popular during the Choson dynasty (1392-1910AD) and widely used by aristocrats and commoners alike. Blue skirts and blue bed covers were, for example, an essential part of a girl’s dowry.