North Korea has banned skinny jeans, mullets, and more to stop “capitalistic culture” from taking over the country.
According to South Korea’s Yonhap news agency, some body piercings, considered a symbol of “capitalistic lifestyle”, have also been banned.
Rodong Sinmum, a state-run newspaper in North Korea, reportedly published a warning that more needs to be done to stop it from being infiltrated by the culture of capitalism, as more young North Koreans begin to embrace western fashion trends. “We must be wary of even the slightest sign of the capitalist lifestyle and fight to get rid of them,” it said.
“History teaches us a crucial lesson that a country can become vulnerable and eventually collapse like a damp wall regardless of its economic and defence power if we do not hold on to our own lifestyle.”
Skinny jeans were a staple of ‘00s indie fashion and became synonymous with certain bands of the era, such as Razorlight thanks to Johnny Borrell’s infamous white jeans.
Trainspotting actor Ewen Bremner, who played Spud in the 1996 movie, also once claimed the film’s costume designer helped popularise skinny jeans for men.
“Actually our costume designer Rachel Fleming basically invented skinny jeans for men with Trainspotting. They didn’t exist before!” he said in 2017. “She would take women’s jeans and re-stitch them, or men’s jeans and cut them apart and cut them apart and restitch them. That was down to her, that whole movement!”
The Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK), which is considered a socialist state, has banned 15 “non-socialist” haircuts, including mullets, spiky, and dyed hair. Acceptable, “proper” hairstyles have been set out in a special order from the government.
Nose and lip piercings are no longer permissible in the DPRK, while branded T-shirts and ripped jeans are also banned. Citizens who break the rules could be sent to labour camps, according to laws brought in by leader Kim Jong-un last year.
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