What to wear to a ballistic missile launch has been a problem for the 10-year-old daughters of dictators for decades.
The oldest daughter of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un put on a £1,950 velvet hoodie by Christian Dior while spending time with her father at yet another missile launch.
According to video published the next day by North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency, Kim Ju-ae, who is thought to be around 10 years old, was pictured with her father at the location on March 16.
She could be seen wearing the plush patterned hoodie as she watched the launch of the Hwasong-17 intercontinental ballistic missile at Pyongyang International Airport.
Ju-ae, one of Kim’s three known children, only appeared in public for the first time last November – at a massive ballistic missile launch, of course.
She was, for a time, simply known as Kim’s ‘beloved daughter’, though some see her sudden presence in the public eye as a sign she’s his heir-apparent.
The South Korean news outlet The Choson Ilbo reported that Ju-ae appeared to be wearing the four-digit priced hoodie by the French fashion house. Though, it’s unclear whether or not it’s a fake.
If it’s real Dior, though, Ju-ae would be wearing a jacket that costs more than double the per capita income in North Korea – estimated to be just £800 a year.
‘The hooded down jacket honours House heritage with the iconic Cannage motif,’ Dior says on the jacket’s product page.
The Cannage print is a staple of Dior designs, consisting of crisscrossing squares and diagonals inspired by the Napoleon III rattan chairs at Christian Dior’s first haute couture show in 1947.
Though, wondering about the history of geometric Dior prints isn’t exactly on the mind of most North Koreans.
Around six in 10 North Koreans live in absolute poverty, a 2020 study by researchers from the Vienna University of Economics and Business found.
The country is also reportedly on the brink of a food famine where ‘common people’ among the country’s 26 million residents struggle to eat three meals a day.
Anonymous sources told Radio Free Asia how North Koreans feel Ju-ae is ‘so different’ from regular children ‘whose cheekbones stick out from their faces’.
‘It makes me angry that my situation is so hard to bear, and Kim Ju-ae, who we all know is eating and living well, is showing up on TV in her fancy clothes so often,’ one source said.
North Korea has long struggled with food insecurity. A wrenching famine in the 1990s gutted food supplies, killing between 240,000 to 3.5 million people.
The Washington DC-based think tank 38 North said in a January report that natural disaster and the coronavirus pandemic has deepened the country’s longstanding food shortage, creating a ‘complex humanitarian emergency’.
‘Food availability has likely fallen below the bare minimum with regard to human needs, and on one metric, is at its worst since the country’s famine in the 1990s,’ it added.
The lavish tastes of North Korea’s ruling family, in contrast, are well-documented.
The Choson Ilbo note that Kim, during an October 2020 military parade, appeared to wear an IWC ‘Portofino’ watch with a price tag of around £10,000.
Ju-ae’s ‘beloved’ white horse was presented alongside a cavalry unit at a military parade in the North Korean capital last month.
She, according to South Korean intelligence, enjoys horse riding, skiing and swimming.
Her mother, Ri Sol-ju, has been sighted holding purses that appeared to be by other high-end brands such as Chanel and Dior.
The report by 38 North adds that the ruling family, even amid the pandemic and the apparent food crisis, has kept its eyes on missile-making and nuclear arms.
‘North Korea appears to be committed to its nuclear posture, and the lack of accountability allows the regime to prioritize its narrow militaristic goals to the detriment of its citizens’ living standards,’ 38 North said.
‘This style of governance is in keeping with what Kim Jong Il, who presided over the country’s famine in the 1990s, once said: “One can live without candy, but one cannot live without bullets.”‘