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What to Wear in North Korea

Fingers crossed that this is the year capri pants reach Pyongyang.
Jamie Clifton
London, GB

Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un, vibing hard at Pyongyang Men's Fashion Week

In 2004, the late Kim Jong-il's North Korean state government put out the snappily-titled TV show, Let's Trim Our Hair In Accordance With The Socialist Lifestyle, which outlined how citizens should dress if they didn't want to be despicable human beings and sub-standard socialists. A kind of light-hearted take on Joan Rivers' genre-defining Fashion Police, if you will. The show mainly consists of a film crew shaming various men because their hair slightly covers their ears – a BIG fashion no-no – before displaying their address and workplace on screen, because, duh, they're never going to bloody learn unless the whole country knows where they live.

Annoncering

Of course, this was almost a decade ago, but judging from the outfits and hair going on in the recent nationwide audition for North Korea's most bummed-out socialist, the proletariat still don't appear to have gone through their counterculture revolution quite yet. Fingers and toes crossed that 2012 will be the year capri pants finally reach Pyongyang. All we can do is dream, and keep checking what's on trend through a pair of binoculars from the demilitarised zone. For now, though, here's a guide on how to dress if you want to look like the hippest cat in the land of the free.

HAIR IS PARAMOUNT

Did you know that the length of your hair directly corresponds with your level of intelligence? Well, it totally does! According to entirely fabricated state-research, if you grow your hair any longer than the accepted flat-top crew cut, those selfish little bastards spurting out of your follicles will start to pinch all the nutrients that would usually go to your brain, leaving you essentially braindead. Even worse, you'll look marginally dishevelled, and, of course, "If a comrade is incapable of feeling ashamed by his hairstyle, how can we expect this man, with such a dishevelled mind-set, to perform his duty well?" Spot-on logic, guys. Einstein had a wild head of hair, and we all know he was a moron. Best bet is to just stick with Kim Jong-il's time-tested interpretation of a Midwestern lesbian's bouffant flat-top.

Annoncering

KEEP IT UNBRANDED

It's always puzzled me how the North Korean government is rigidly pro-U.S.A, yet you never see anyone in North Korea sporting Nike or drinking Coca-Cola. Whatever, the moral here is to avoid wearing anything branded by a Western company, because, a: All your friends will laugh at you and call you a dweeb, and b: Your entire family could end up dying at a labour camp in Russia. How embarrassing.

NO TROUSERS, LADIES

Nobody can deny that Kim Jong-il was good to his people. Globally, women despise trousers – that's a concrete fact – so what did the Glorious Leader do? He banned his nation's women from ever wearing trousers, all so they didn't have to go through that tedious everyday rigmarole of pretending a sturdy pair of trousers were warmer and way more comfortable than a cheap, scratchy cotton skirt. What a top bloke.

NO JEANS, ANYONE Apologies for the Kim-heavy photos, I don't think North Korean civilians like having their photos on the internet, or something?

Cholos and soccer-moms always get first props when it comes to chinos, but North Korea is the criminally underlooked, undisputed OG of chino OGs. You're going to want to get your hands on some poorly-tailored slacks if you want any chance of picking up some N.K tail, but my utmost top tip in the trouser department is to avoid jeans at all costs. It doesn't matter that North Korea make a tidy business of exporting denim, actually wearing the stuff will instantly make you the worst, American-sympathising human being in a 40,000 square mile radius, and that's a very lonely feeling.

Annoncering

FUR-COLLARED COATS AND PUFFA JACKETS

If you're sacking off Magaluf this year for a trip to Pyongyang – or any of North Korea's charming rural retreats, for that matter – don't even think about busting over there with your favourite peacoat or bomber jacket, you'll look an utter dick. Puffa jackets, fur-collared coats or padded-out pensioner jackets are de rigueur. I suppose the way to approach the coat game out there is exactly like you're going to a mid-90s Nas show, only with the minor disadvantage of being ostracised from your community forever if you wear the wrong thing too often.

CLEAN YOUR SHOES

A scuffed shoe represents corruption, capitalism and every ounce of evil that The West have ever mustered up, crammed into one abhorrent signifier of everything that is bad about the world. I don't know why I'm telling you this, though, you heard it all before in nursery, right? Scuffed shoes are pure evil, so make sure you're polished and buffed, otherwise your shoes might lead to more slightly scuffed shoes and, ultimately, the demise of the entire country into a free-zone where people can dress however the hell they want, and God forbid something as awful as that ever happening.

MILITARY-CHIC IS INESCAPABLY IN

Hey, Coco Chanel, you might have said fashion fades, but you're dead wrong about North Korea. Military-chic has been in fashion here since 1948, and there are no signs of it being budged out of the way by any of those vacuous Western fads, like jeans, or a wardrobe that doesn't make you look like you kill people for a living. It's even a North Korean custom to dress children up in military outfits for special birthdays, equivalent to how little kids in the West dress up as Spiderman, or whatever, for their birthday parties. Only, Western kids are never going to be able to shoot webs from their wrists, whereas most North Korean kids are guaranteed to spend years of their life in the military, with 10 of those years under a mandatory celibacy order. I don't know where North Korea gets this oppressive, backwards image from, it sounds like a riot to me.