North Korea maximum leader Kim Jong-un doesn’t like looking cheap and common. So his government has banned citizens dressing up in similar leather trench coats he started wearing in 2019.
Fashion police have now been deployed to shut down clothiers selling leather coats.
Those wearing it are sloughing it off right away.
‘[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.’
The new media said versions of the coat first began appearing in September 2021 when unofficial trade between China and North Korea was reopened following a shut-down during the Covid pandemic.
That allowed traders to start acquiring synthetic leather to make the coats.
Radio Free Asia claimed to have seen an import document from recent months that showed dozens of metres of the material being imported.
South Korean media first saw the Kin new fad in 2019, and many believed he was on to something different.