New rules in North Korea
So that you don’t steal your style: Kim Jong-un forbids leather coats
Kim Jong Un with a leather coat – this style will probably be reserved for the rulers of North Korea in the future.
© KCNA / DPA
The ruler of North Korea, Kim Jong-un, has already come up with a lot to promote his personality cult. Now he forbids his population to wear different styles of clothing
There is bad news for fashion lovers in North Korea: as the portal “dazed” reports, the North Korean ruler Kim Jong-un has banned fashion trends that he sees as his own.
Accordingly, the police would act against the “unclean trend” to imitate the ruler. Hairstyles like a mullet and the sidecut that Kim wears have been banned in the isolated country since the beginning of the year. According to the government, the reason for the ban was the “exotic and decadent” influence of capitalism. In this context, the ruler also called K-Pop music a “malignant cancerous tumor”.
The reason for the new wave of bans on different clothing styles seems much more personal, however. According to Radio Free Asia, leather coats and trench coats have been very popular in North Korea since the late 2000s when Kim Jong-un first appeared on television wearing such a coat. The trend was apparently reinforced because Kim and several high-ranking officials showed up in such leather coats at the eighth party congress in January this year.
Wearing leather coats “impure trend” that challenges those in power
Some powerful women, such as Kim Jong-uns sister Kim Yo-jong, also reportedly attended the meeting. Thus, the leather coat in North Korea also became a symbol for powerful women. But Kim is apparently no friend of the fact that the mob steals his style, hence the national ban.
Authorities said the wearing of clothing similar to Kim Jong-un’s is an “unclean trend that challenges the authority of the highest dignity,” according to a North Korean source. “They instructed the public not to wear leather coats as it is part of the party’s policy to decide who can wear them.”
Police pursue wearers of leather coats
A second source explains that police have targeted both the coat designers and the citizens who flaunt their Kim Jong Un-inspired coat. “When these leather coats became popular, law enforcement agencies took action against the companies that made the coats that looked too much like the coats of the Supreme Dignity,” it said. “They also take action against people who wear them in public.”
Government action last week attracted international attention. A man in North Korea is said to have been sentenced to death for smuggling illegal copies of the Netflix series “Squid Game” into the country. Some students who were caught watching the series now face jail sentences.
Source: dazed, Radio Free Asia