‘Rooster Hairstyle,’ See-Thru Sleeves Now Banned in North Korea

Off-limits fashion items also include jeans, dyed hair and even shoulder bags.

By Kim Jieun for RFA Korean

North Korea has added the “rooster hairstyle” and blouses with see-through sleeves to its banned fashion list, saying they “obscure the image of a socialist system,” sources inside the country said.

Violators face up to six months of labor sentences, the sources told Radio Free Asia.

The new regulations were detailed in a video lecture shown to people, with hairstyle violators forced to shave their heads, a resident of the northeastern province of North Hamgyong told RFA Korean on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

The bans are the latest to target the fashion choices of the North Korean people, and join a long list of other prohibited clothing that includes sleeveless shirts, jeans, hair dye, non-creased pants, T-shirts with foreign lettering, shoulder bags, and specifically for women, hair below the waist, shorts and figure-hugging tops.

Most of these no-nos are typical styles of clothing worn in rival South Korea or in other capitalist countries and can be made illegal under the draconian Rejection of Reactionary Thought and Culture Law, which aims to root out an invasion of so-called capitalist or anti-socialist behavior.

But another round of fashion bans seems to prevent people from having the same style as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and those around him.

Citizens found sporting the same hairstyle as Kim, or his same style of wide-legged pants, or his iconic leather trenchcoat look can also be punished.

Native reaction

The supreme leader’s daughter Kim Ju Ae recently appeared in a blouse with semi-transparent sleeves.

And Hyon Song Wol, the deputy department director of the ruling Korean Workers’ Party, who often appears at events alongside Kim, has sported the “rooster hairstyle,” in which long hair is tied atop the head with bangs covering the forehead and one eye.

That ordinary citizens aren’t allowed to wear these styles is a double standard, residents said.

“Residents protested, saying, ‘You can’t wear hair in a bun, you can’t cover your forehead and eyes with your bangs. Are people machines?’” the North Hamgyong resident said.

Another resident from the northwestern province of North Pyongan said that people there took issue with the ban on transparent-sleeved blouses.

“Even the leader’s daughter appeared wearing see-through clothes,” he said. “People protested and asked why wearing them would be anti-socialist.”

Translated by Claire S. Lee. Edited by Eugene Whong, Joshua Lipes, and Malcolm Foster.