Sometimes I have a hard time letting go of a drama that I am really fond of. In this case, I keep thinking about Just Between Lovers, a quietly endearing story of two people who find each other after having endured the same tragic incident in their past. There is something that I noticed all through the series and finally decided to take a good look at. I am talking about the coats. Seriously, for a woman who seems to be not very well off, she has a LOT of coats, and they are mostly really nice wool coats. Who else noticed it? Come with me and take a look at this! How many do you think there are?

We aren’t given any warning of the preeminence of coats at the beginning of the drama. Our lead guy Gang-Doo has a bleached jean jacket, but it was evidently warm enough that our girl Moon-Soo didn’t bother with a coat. One of the first things we learn about them is that neither one can abide closed-in spaces. They are both avoiding the elevator and suddenly run into each other in the stairwell. She is startled, falls, and he catches her. Yep, it’s a Korean drama, all right!

Moon-Soo wears nice casual outfits to the office until Episode 7, when she shows up in a taupe plaid blazer. The weather must have gotten colder because she wears a blue fuzzy sweater on the bus and then a long coral one to her friend Wan-Jin’s rooftop party. Gang-Doo keeps up with her by wearing something different each time; a brown zip-up jacket on the bus, a jean jacket with fleece collar at the office, and a black fleece-lined one at the party. This is going to ruin his beaten-down image!

In Episode 8 we finally get going with the beautiful winter coats, with Moon-Soo in white wool with a very wide collar. She amazingly wears it to check on cargo with Gang-Doo, who has on a black parka with a tan hoodie under it. Later on, when she visits the construction site she wears a coat with a small gray plaid pattern and a muted wine stripe, which she wears again in Episode 12 when her mom sees her from across the street, so it’s nice to know she wears things again sometimes. I don’t think she wears the white coat again so she must have gotten it dirty.

Quite a few of Moon-soo’s dress coats are very similar, so it may not be obvious that she has so many. She has at least one other long white one, a fleece gray one, and a tan one with patch pockets, but in this grouping she has a tan coat with straight lapels and pocket flaps, a light green coat, a long white one that is obviously too large for her, an off-white fingertip-length coat with contrasting buttons, a long light-gray coat, and another tan one with curved lapels and brass buttons. You will notice that Gang-Doo also has different jackets in every picture; although if they are product placement, I don’t think the grey down coat in the first picture will sell well. If it makes him look fat, it will look bad on anyone!

Of course, we know that the real reason Moon-Soo has so many coats is product placement. But another reason that she wears them is that it is winter and the actress is cold. There are a lot of outdoor scenes, but she even wears coats indoors. That means the sets aren’t heated, although I haven’t seen anyone’s breath in this show. This picture is from Episode 14 when she is wearing the tan coat with the Sherlock Holmes collar and writing up messages from survivors that will go on the monument.

There are several coats that are very different from the rest. There is a crazy red and blue plaid one from Episode 10 that she wears when Gang-Doo comes back from fishing, and again in Episode 16. You couldn’t miss the black plaid coat with embroidered edging from Episode 15 that she wears when they assemble broken column pieces to make the monument. I think she only has one red coat, the dark one she wears to visit the neighborhood Halmonie (Grandma) at the hospital. Then there is the retro double-breasted brown plaid that she wears in Episode 14 when they leave the note for the mother of the boy she knew who died in the collapse.

Supposing that these are all Moon-Soo’s coats, I have no idea where she keeps them all. In Episode 13 we see her in a pink coat putting on makeup in her bedroom and get a glimpse of her coat rack. There isn’t much on it, although it looks like there might be a couple of tan coats there.

Speaking of that cute pink coat with the short cape, Moon-Soo has it on when Gang-Doo takes to wearing fancier coats with fur trim. We have shown him with furry hoods already in a couple of pictures, and in this one from Episode 13, he is wearing a white parka trimmed in fur when he hustles her out of the mall because it reminds him of the building that fell. In the next picture from Episode 12 where they visit survivors, he is wearing a full-length olive green coat with tan fur while she has come up with an orange coat and a blouse with matching trim. Her collarless dark blue coat and his gray parka with black fur are from Episode 15 when they visited the mother of the boy Moon-Soo had liked. She has a lighter blue one in Episode 16. And of course, we can’t forget the suit and dress coat Gang-Doo bought when he inherited his money in Episode 12. Moon-Soo is waiting for him in a long medium-gray coat, completely appreciating that he is as addicted to winter coats as she is and looks extremely good in them!

She has at least two black coats. I like the short double-breasted black pea coat that she is wearing in Episode 9 when Gang-Doo’s roommate Sang-Man takes her on a walk and they find Gang-Doo talking to Yoo-Jin, the boss’s sister. I had one like that once! She has at least one long black coat that she wears in Episode 12 and maybe in Episode 16. It’s hard to see the details on black, so maybe they were different, but they are a classic look.

It looks to me like she has found the right guy. They seem pretty fond of each other and have common interests in architecture and overcoats. To answer the question I posed at the beginning of this post, it looks like Moon-Soo has at least 23 overcoats, not counting the sweaters and the blazer. Do you think she bought them all while working at this construction company, or did she already have some of them? At any rate, we wish them both well, and hope they are never without a new overcoat for every occasion!

Happy viewing!

Telzeytalks from Dramas With a Side of Kimchi