Are North Koreans Allowed To Wear Makeup?

CNN Way has launched a dedicated Dazzler department. Read more than Beauty stories hither.

Aspiring actress Nara Kang puts on a coral red lipstick and gently rubs orangish blush onto her cheeks, the white glitter swept under her optics sparkling every bit she tilts her caput in the lite.

Kang would never have been able to do this back domicile in Chongjin, North Hamgyong Province.

"Putting on cerise lipstick is unimaginable in North Korea," she says. "The colour ruby-red represents commercialism and that may be why North Korean society does not let you clothing it."

Kang now lives in Seoul, Republic of korea. The 22-year-old fled Democratic people's republic of korea in 2015 to escape a regime that restricted her personal freedoms, from what she wore to how she tied her hair.

Almost people in Kang's hometown were just allowed to clothing a lite tint on their lips -- sometimes pink simply never red -- and long pilus had to be tied upwards neatly or braided, she says.

"Putting on red lipstick was unimaginable in North Korea," says Nara Kang.

Credit: CNN

Kang would walk through alleys instead of main roads to avoid encountering the "Gyuchaldae," North korea's then-called style law.

"Whenever I put on makeup, older people in the village would say that I'm a rascal smeared with capitalism," recalls Kang. "There was a patrol unit of measurement every 10-meters to crackdown on pedestrians for their looks."

"We weren't allowed to wear accessories similar this," she says, pointing at her silver rings and bracelets. "Or dye our pilus and let it loose like this," she gestures to her wavy locks.

A staff poses next to a board displaying approved hairstyles at a women's salon in the Munsu Water Park complex in Pyongyang, North Korea in 2018.

Credit: Carl Court/Getty Images

According to two defectors CNN interviewed for this story, who left the regime between 2010 and 2015, wearing clothes perceived as "too Western" such as miniskirts, shirts with written English and tight jeans, can be subject to pocket-size fines, public humiliation or punishment -- though the rules vary in dissimilar regions.

Depending on the alleged criminal offence or the patrol unit, the defectors said some offenders were fabricated to stand in the center of a town's foursquare and endure harsh criticism from officers. Others were ordered to perform hard labor.

"Many women are instructed or advised by (their) business firm, school or arrangement to wear tidy wearing apparel and (have a) make clean appearance," explains Nam Sung-wook, a professor of North Korean studies at Korea University.

Pedestrians look for a autobus in Pyongyang, North Korea in 2017.

Credit: Ed Jones/AFP/Getty Images

They may have been living in one of the globe's most restrictive states, but Kang says she and other N Korean millennials still kept up with fashion trends outside the country.

It'southward piece of cake, she says, if you know where to look.

Black market culture

Translated as "market," Jangmadang is the name given to the local North Korean markets that sell everything from fruit, clothing and household products. They started prospering during the bully dearth in the 1990s when people realized they couldn't depend on government rations.

Many North Koreans yet store at these markets for daily necessities, only they are also the source of illegal products smuggled into the state. Strange content, including movies, music videos, and soap operas, is copied onto USB drives, CDs or SD Cards in South korea or China and smuggled into North Korea, co-ordinate to the Southward Korean Unification Ministry.

This is also a method that many human rights organizations use to send in information challenging the regime.

Activists make full water bottles with rice, cash and 1000-pop-filled USB sticks to be thrown into the sea towards N Korea on Ganghwa island, South korea in 2018.

Credit: Ed Jones/AFP/Getty Images

"Due north Korean young urbanites are getting civilization from the outside earth," says Sokeel Park, South korea country director of enquiry and strategy for homo rights grouping Liberty in North Korea.

"This has an consequence even in way trends, hair styles and dazzler standards inside North Korea," adds Park. "If immature Northward Koreans picket South Korean TV programs, they may desire to change their pilus or clothes to what Due south Koreans wait similar."

Joo Yang puts on a pearl necklace she designed in Seoul, South Korea.

Credit: CNN

Before she fled North korea in 2010, defector and now jewelry designer Joo Yang says she and her friends used to visit the Jangmadang markets to find USB sticks with films and popular music videos from South korea.

At the market, Yang says female smugglers would talk in a distinct Seoul accent to concenter the attention of young women who had already been exposed to Due south Korean civilisation. Sometimes merchants would take customers to their homes where at that place would exist rooms full of wearing apparel and cosmetics, according to Yang.

South Korean cosmetics were two to 3 times more expensive than N Korean or Chinese-fabricated products, she says. She had to pay two weeks' worth of rice to purchase a single mascara or lipstick from South Korea.

Cosmetics display inside a store in Seoul, South korea in 2019.

Credit: CNN

The marketplace is and so popular with millennials that they are referred as the "Jangmadang generation," says Park, who produced a documentary by the same name examining the lives of young North Koreans and their bear on on guild.

The famine disrupted the schooling organization, so many of the Jangmadang generation literally grew upward shopping in the markets, and take a greater insight into capitalism than previous generations, he adds.

Yang says she has seen the style of women in N Korea evolve based on the looks of popular M-dramas.

"If young Northward Koreans watch South Korean TV programs, and so they may want to alter their hair or apparel to what Due south Koreans expect like. And then this has an issue on way trends, hairstyles and beauty standards in Democratic people's republic of korea," says Park. He adds fashion and beauty trends extend beyond the surface, they signal an implicit alter within the society.

N Korea'southward dazzler industry

Despite the absence of internationally-recognized North Korean cosmetics brands, North korea's state media KCNA claims its cosmetics industry is thriving. In November, Pyongyang hosted a national cosmetics show where "more than than 137,000 beauty products" were presented, including "new soaps to help remove waste product matter from pare and functional cosmetics (to help) blood circulation, beauty goods and anti-aging cosmetics" co-ordinate to KCNA.

Kim Jong Un inspects the Pyongyang Cosmetics Factory in 2017.

Credit: STR/AFP/Getty Images

Kim Jong United nations is building on the legacy of his grandfather, Due north Korea'south founder Kim Il Sung who created the country'southward first cosmetics manufactory in 1949. Kim Il Sung, who had previously used cosmetics to boost the morale of female soldiers in Manchuria during the boxing with Japan, realized the power of beauty in changing people's minds early on. Following his footsteps, the younger Kim is investing in land-run brands Unhasu and Bomhyanggi to develop the "world's best cosmetics," land news agency KCNA reported in 2017.

The recent push to develop the domestic cosmetic industry comes amid deepening international sanctions, which have made information technology even more hard for N Korea to import high-quality ingredients and products, according to Professor Nam.

Nam said Kim saw also an opportunity in the growing popularity of South Korean beauty products to produce his own version of Korean cosmetics for export, taking inspiration from the packaging of South Korean products likewise equally their popular ingredients like ginseng.

Northward Korean cosmetics displayed in Nam'south part show resemblance to Southward Korean products' packaging.

Credit: CNN

Earlier this yr, KCNA reported that the domestic Sinuiju cosmetics factory had "adult various functional cosmetics like eyelashes growth serums and beauty masks for acne treatment," and was exporting them to other countries like Russia and Red china.

'Beauty is freedom'

Locally-made cosmetics might be readily available in North Korea, merely they don't accept the aforementioned enshroud or variety every bit foreign brands.

People who wearable smuggled foreign cosmetics are non only experimenting with their own looks, merely trying to button the boundaries of what's acceptable in North Korea, Park said.

"Yous are wearing clothes that y'all are not really supposed to, which has been influenced past illegal foreign media," he said. "And so you're signaling to your community and to your friends that you are kind of dissimilar and willing to interruption these rules that are at least low level."

Joo Yang puts on a crimson lipstick in her flat in Seoul.

Credit: CNN

Pyongyang'south attempts to control citizens' personal choices can only go so far, wrote Due north Korean culture proficient at Dong-A University, Professor Dong-wan Kang, in a government-deputed newspaper on the topic of South korea's influence on the hermit kingdom.

"Although North Korean government crack downwardly on fashion and hairstyles of the so-called corrupt culture of capitalism, there is a limit to the total control of their citizens' desire and needs," writes Kang.

"Following South Korean influences on clothing, makeup and hair disrupts everyday expectations and can lead to dissatisfaction and skepticism about the North Korean regime. Mimicking South korea, they are deviating from the club and it shows that a subculture has been formed every bit a factor of government resistance."

Both Yang and Nara Kang say in South Korea they are able to limited themselves in a manner they weren't allowed to earlier.

"When I beginning went to a cosmetics store in South Korea, I swear I thought I went to a toy store in North korea considering there was a huge diversity of colors like toys," recalls Kang.

Colorful lip glosses are displayed within a cosmetic shop in Seoul, South korea.

Credit: CNN

"For me, beauty is freedom," she says. "Now I have more ownership over my dazzler."

Yang said a lot of her friends in North Korea were enraged by non existence able to wearing apparel the way they wanted.

"Nosotros are brainwashed by the North Korean government, and so we still like the Supreme Leader, but the desire to look pretty is some other issue," says Yang. "The anger starts building up inside y'all, questioning why shouldn't I do information technology?"

Park, who works with a lot of newly arrived defectors in Republic of korea, foresees a bigger change that beauty can bring in North Korean lodge.

The activist explains that the government has go aware of the younger generation rebelling against land-approved culture. This is pushing them to adapt and to allow some caste of flexibility in social club to maintain power.

"It basically forces the government to answer the question: Are they going to go with this modify or are they just going to try and repress (it)?"

CNN's Charlie Miller and Momo Moussa contributed to the video.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/style/article/north-korea-womens-beauty-freedom/index.html

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