Why I’ll never own a pair of jeans

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Will Moore has narrated this article for you to listen to.

North Korea has a problem with Alan Titchmarsh’s crotch. Last week a 2010 episode of Garden Secrets was aired on state television, but the network blurred Titchmarsh from the waist down. The offence was his gardening trousers – a pair of jeans. For the Workers’ Party of Korea, jeans represent an ‘invasion of capitalistic lifestyles’. They must be resisted.

In a sense, Kim Jong-un is right that jeans are a sign of American dominance. In 1986 the philosopher Régis Debray declared there was ‘more power in blue jeans and rock ’n’ roll than the entire Red Army’. Communist states agreed. Western-produced jeans were banned in the Soviet Union and Maoist China. The smuggling of bootleg jeans became so widespread that Soviet authorities gave it its own name – ‘jeans crime’. A single pair could be sold for as much as a month’s average salary.