English TV presenter Alan Titchmarsh found himself the unlikely target of North Korean censorship.
Central TV screenshot
North Korea censored footage of the TV presenter Alan Titchmarsh to hide the fact that he was wearing jeans.
North Korea's Central TV broadcast Titchmarsh's 2010 show "Garden Secrets" recently, but obscured his trousers.
North Korean media is known for being heavily censored — but this example raised eyebrows in England due to Titchmarsh's benign, unthreatening character.
His jeans appear to have been at odds with laws banning US denim products, which the Pyongyang regime sees as a symbol of imperialism.
The incident is a weird insight into the paradoxes of North Korea, a nation that supposedly rejects Western capitalism while still embracing some parts of it.
Titchmarsh seemed surprised when asked about what happened by the BBC.
He wondered if it might finally give his reputation a bit of edge.
"I've never seen myself as a dangerous subversive imperialist - I'm generally regarded as rather cozy and pretty harmless, so actually it's given me a bit of street cred really hasn't it?" he said.
North Korea banned jeans in the 1990s under Kim Jong Il, the father of current ruler Kim Jong Un. It was part of a campaign against the supposedly corrosive effects of Western culture.
However, Kim Jong Un is said to be a fan of Western luxury products, particularly its cars. He is a longtime devotee of NBA basketball, but he has continued his father's campaign against foreign sartorial styles, banning skinny jeans and dyed hair in 2021.
North Korea has been broadcasting Titchmarsh's show for several years — mostly without needing to intervene over his outfits — which Titchmarsh found bemusing.
"I never imagined that my programs would reach North Korea, but hopefully the calming nature of British gardening will be well received there," he said in 2022.
The specialist site NK News reported that when "Garden Secrets" is broadcast in North Korea it is dubbed and Korean music is played in the background.
