North Korean elite shell out on finery

[unhappycamper]

http://atimes.com/atimes/Korea/KOR-01-200314.html



North Korean elite shell out on finery
By Kim Jun-ho
Mar 20, '14

North Koreans shopping in Chinese border towns are paying sky-high prices for South Korean-made fabric used for traditional women's dresses, ignoring cheaper domestically made equivalents, according to traders and merchants.

North Koreans buy the fabric for the dresses, known in the North as choson-ot and in the South as hanbok, for hundreds or thousands of Chinese yuan - prices unaffordable for average North Koreans, traders in the border towns said.

"All the fabrics I sell are from South Korea and most of my customers are North Korean," a Chinese merchant in Dandong, an important cross-border trading city across the river from North Korea's Sinuiju, said on condition of anonymity.

The fabric North Koreans buy at shops in Dandong ranges in price from about 800 yuan (US$130) for one dress worth, and can go up to 4,000 yuan for more elaborate, embroidered designs.