Clothing and shoe smugglers operating in the China-North Korea border area of Yanggang Province have been following the latest fashion trends in South Korea, Daily NK has learned.
Speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons, a source in Yanggang Province told Daily NK on Tuesday that smugglers in Hyesan have recently been keeping up with South Korean trends. “The younger generation is very interested in clothes that are fashionable in South Korea,” he said.
According to the source, individual smugglers in North Korea have been considering the latest trends in South Korea when selecting items to import for some time.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, smugglers had been providing wholesalers with clothes and shoes in styles that were currently in fashion in South Korea, as these products were in high demand among young people. Essentially, smugglers had served to spread South Korean fashion trends in the North.
But North Korea’s closure of its border with China after the outbreak of the pandemic has made smuggling much more difficult, and young people have had to settle for mending old items or wearing things made in North Korea, regardless of what is in fashion in South Korea.
In the second half of 2023, some smugglers managed to bring in a small amount of clothing and shoes, but these were mostly cheap items tailored to the North Korean standard of living rather than items following the latest fashion styles in the South.
However, recent rumors that smugglers will import clothes and shoes after the Lunar New Year have sparked interest among the general population, especially younger people, in the latest fashion trends in South Korea.
“Although locally produced clothing has been sold in marketplaces for several years since the border closure, it’s not very popular because of high prices and the fact that people are generally dissatisfied with local products. But imported goods sell very well because smugglers find things that meet people’s desires and living standards,” the source said.
In fact, smugglers have been tracking the latest trends in South Korea to import the kind of goods that customers want. They contact friends in South Korea directly on Chinese-made cell phones to ask what kind of clothes are trendy this year, as well as photos of those clothes, the source said.
The smugglers, of course, cannot bring in goods from South Korea. But they can send the photos to Chinese merchants and ask them to find items that look similar, the source said.
“Wealthy people in my circle are curious about what kind of clothes are trendy in South Korea right now, and they want me to bring in clothes that match that trend. They want to wear something that looks new,” said a smuggler working in the China-North Korea border area.
“Wholesalers are always pressuring me to bring cheap clothes that follow what’s fashionable in South Korea. I guess it’s because they think young people want to follow South Korean trends,” the smuggler said.
“We can partly satisfy this demand with similar products made in China. [The authorities] can try to instill hostility toward South Korea and reinforce ideological indoctrination, but people here [North Koreans] are still very interested in South Korean culture and the latest trends there,” the source said.
Translated by David Carruth. Edited by Robert Lauler.
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