According to reports, North Korea bans the use of leather trench coats in public after Kim Jong-un made them a favorite fashion item.
Kim wore the coat for the first time in 2019 and it quickly became a favorite among North Korean elites who wanted to demonstrate their loyalty to the Supreme leader but could not afford leather.
Recent knock-off imitations, however, have been increasing in popularity. Fashion police are now on standby to seize them from merchants and remove them from people. This is because Kim fears that this will make his look weaker and undermining his authority.
Kim Jong-un reported North Koreans are forbidden to wear leather trench coats. The item was one of his favourite fashion items (photo: Kim Jong un wearing it last week).
Initially the preserve of the wealthy elite, cheap knock-offs of Kim’s coat have been appearing in markets in recent months, sources claimed (pictured in the coat for the first time in 2019)
‘[Police] say that wearing clothes designed to look like the Highest Dignity’s is an ‘impure trend to challenge the authority of the Highest Dignity,’ a source told Radio Free Asia, using a common honorific to refer to Kim.
‘They instructed the public not to wear leather coats, because it is part of the party’s directive to decide who can wear them.’
According to the outlet knock-off versions began appearing after September 2012, when official trade between North Korea and China was opened again following an outbreak of Covid.
It was then possible for traders to purchase synthetic leather in order to produce the coats.
Radio Free Asia claims to have seen an Import Document from Recent Months that showed many metres of material being imported.
Kim wore a first leather jacket in December 2019 while he was in negotiations with Donald Trump about North Korea’s nuclear stockpile.
South Korean media reported that Kim was noticing his sartorial flair, which could be interpreted as a sign of his desire to depart from the tradition and create his own identity.
He had been dressing up in Mao-style jackets, and wearing horn-rimmed glasses until then.
This leather coat made many appearances over the years, including being adopted by Kim Yo-Jong’s sister and several senior female politicians.
The fear that the counterfeit coats would make the Supreme Leader look less professional and undermine his authority led to police confiscating them.
Kim donned this jacket as part of negotiations with Trump in 2019. It symbolized a break with North Korea’s past and was first worn by Kim in 2019.
Kim recently wore the jacket while she visited a tourist spot near Samjiyon, a newly built town.
North Koreans don’t have to wear leather coats for the first time.
Sources told Radio Free Asia in 2014 that three years had passed since Kim was elected leader. They said male students were instructed to cut their hair to look like the Supreme Leader. At the time, the style required that the hair be cut short on the sides and back with a little parting at the top.
In 2017, news broke that North Koreans were forbidden from having their hair cut in Kim’s style and allowed only 15 styles to select from.
Each cut has a short side and back with hair either combed forward or backwards.
These requirements are reminiscent of a 2005 campaign on state television that urged people to “trim their hair in line with the Socialist lifestyle”.
Women were advised to wear shorter styles to “repel the enemy’s manoeuvres to penetrate corrupt capitalist ideas, lifestyle and lifestyle’ to North Korea.
This same campaign asked North Koreans to wear sensible shoes and keep their clothing modest.
‘No matter how good the clothes, if one does not wear tidy shoes, one’s personality will be downgraded,’ ran a column in state newspaper Minju Choson that year.
North Korean executed by firing squad following smuggling of Squid Game copies into Korea
North Korean authorities are going to execute a man for returning a copy Netflix’s Squid Game to the country.
According to some reports, the student smuggler returned from China with an encrypted USB flash drive containing a digital copy of South Korean television series.
After selling the copies to several students, he was busted by surveillance agencies.
English Council has advised parents that their children should not watch Squid Game on Netflix. The show is considered violent and graphic.
It is understood he will now be executed by firing squad – one of the grim methods by which characters in the series are also killed.
According to reports, the arrests were made in North Hamgyong Province of the country which is bordered with China.
Radio Free Asia reports that one student who purchased a drive from the company has been given a life sentence and six other people who watched it have been sent to hard labor for five years.
North Korea bans any material from South Korea or the West. Authorities are conducting searches in schools to locate foreign media.
Reports suggest that some teachers were fired, or may be expelled to work in remote mining areas as punishment.
According to a source from law enforcement, the story began last week with a student at high school who secretly purchased a flash drive that contained the South Korean drama Squid Game. He then watched the film with one of his closest friends.
According to the source, the two discussed the series together with their friends. They became interested in it and purchased copies.
Squid Game depicts a dystopian future in which people with high debts are pitted against one another in Korean games for children, with the losing player being executed. This is clearly reflected in North Koreans who live under dictatorship.
The government’s surveillance agency 109 Sangmu caught the students after they received a tip that the students were viewing a Western television show.