In repressive North Korea, facelifts and skinny jeans are in style
North Korean women stroll near the national library, known as the Grand People’s Study House, in central Pyongyang.
Women in North Korea, one of the world’s most repressive countries, still keep up to date with fashion trends and go in for plastic surgery despite grinding poverty and chronic food shortages, according to a report by an online newspaper.
Upper-class women in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, have been spotted wearing on-trend skinny jeans and big earrings, reports AFP citing the Daily NK, a South Korea-based publication that relies on a network of sources in the North.
Most women in totalitarian North Korea wear uniforms or drab clothes, such as plain skirts with below-the-knee hems, simple shoes with a practical chunky heel, and dowdy blouses adorned with the mandatory pin showing Kim Il-sung, the “Great Leader,” which all North Koreans must wear.
Women tend to favor plain bob haircuts and little makeup apart from ivory foundation cream to make skin appear paler.
The Daily NK says that while facelifts are illegal, state surgeons will perform the surgery in secret in exchange for bribes. For a payment of 2,000-3,000 North Korean won, or $14 to $21, a doctor will perform an upper eyelid lift to remove excess fatty deposits.
"Upper eyelid surgeries and cosmetic tattoos on eyebrows, lips and the corners of eyes are widespread in North Korea," a source from Pyongyang told the Daily NK.
"Many women want plastic surgeries regardless of deprivation and food shortages," the source said.
Famine is again threatening North Korea this spring, and the UN's World Food Program is preparing to distribute emergency food aid to 3.5 million North Koreans suffering from "severe malnutrition" and starvation.
Women in North Korea used to be banned from wearing jeans and mini-skirts, considered forms of “capitalist decadence.” Men were required to have short back-and-sides hair, instead of long hair that had a "negative effect" on intelligence, with a televised propaganda campaign exhorting men to "trim our hair in accordance with Socialist lifestyle."
But under Kim Jong-un, son and heir apparent of current leader Kim Jong-il, fashion restrictions have reportedly eased.
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