North Korea is intensifying its campaign against citizens who dress in capitalist-style attire or imitate foreign hairstyles as part of a broader assault on international pop culture.
Men and women are restricted to a list of “authorized” hairstyles and apparel by the North Korean dictatorship, which has long railed against outside influences damaging its communist way of life.
Can You Wear Trousers In North Korea?
According to reports, representatives of the Communist Patriotic Youth League claimed that wearing “North Korean style” attire and hair is an important part of a socialist lifestyle.
North Koreans who break fashion regulations may be detained, interrogated, beaten, and sentenced to prison in some situations.
Officials are photographing women who are stopped on the street for not following government dress restrictions and exploiting the footage in anti-state lectures.
One video shows numerous women in their 20s and 30s being held for wearing tight leggings or coloring their hair.
The women are described as capitalist delinquents with indecent clothing and an impure ideology in the footage commentary.
North Korean defector Eunhee Park has also disclosed that Pyongyang is trying to eradicate individualism because it adds to regime opposition.
Park left North Korea in 2012 and now works for the South Korean advocacy group Freedom Speakers International as a keynote speaker.
