EPICANTHUS

• [UPDATE 12/07/09: Swedish Store Pulls Sale of North Korean Jeans, BBC

In the midst of a dark scenario involving underground nuclear detonations, threatening missile launches and a lot of ugly face-making, a jolly band of idealistic, enterprising and somewhat naive young Swedish advertising agency workers in their 20s fired off an intercontinental ballistic email to North Korea's biggest garment maker. It went something like: "Please make us cool skinny jeans, and we will market and sell them to the West's decadent fashionista." The year was 2007.

The young Swedes didn't really expect they would even get a response, so a few early rejections didn't deter their optimism. Fast forward 2½ years since that first email, and we find Jacob Åström, Tor Rauden Källstigen and Jakob Ohlsson, the cofounders of NoKo Jeans, selling their North Korean-made denims Dec. 4 in Stockholm's hip fashion store PUB and online from NoKo's own hastily mounted Web site, www.nokojeans.com.

And at the same time they take the wraps of their "Made In North Korea" labeled jeans, the NoKo trio is revealing an ulterior but noble motive behind the madness of daring to do business with the Pyongyang regime of Kim Jong-il.

They don't call it the "Hermit Kingdom" for nothing.

Noko’s founders said they had spent over a year trying to gain access to factory operators in North Korea, and struggled with poor communications and an unfamiliar approach to doing business once inside the country.

“There is a political gap, there is a mental gap, and there is an economic gap,” said Astrom. “All contacts with the country are difficult and remain so to this day.”

The idea for the project was born out of their curiosity about North Korea, which has grown increasingly isolated under Western criticism of its human rights record and nuclear ambitions. “The reason we did this was to come closer to a country that was very difficult to get into contact with,” said Astrom.

Wary of all attempts for contact by foreigners, Kim Jong-il's government rarely allows outsiders within its borders and has virtually no trade or diplomatic relations with most Western countries. But Sweden, one of seven countries that currently have an embassy in North Korea, is an exception.

Banking that the goodwill established over the years would put the North Koreans more at ease with their proposal, the NoKo boys initially struck out badly in trying to convince North Korea's largest textile firm to produce 1,000 or so jeans for them. First, the suspicious North Koreans steadfastly refused to produce blue denims because they equated blue jeans with the evil U.S. But weirdly, the Swedish lads found that the future partners had no problems with black jeans. Who knew?

That's what 60 years of isolation can do, and in many ways the Noko execs still find their new manufacturers had to figure. While the the North's textile giant completely pwned them, scoring a zinc furnace for the secretive country's largest mining company proved to be a great help in finally reaching an agreement for their first 1,000 Noko jeans. Seems that the mining company had a nice little textile operation running on the side. They also had to come up with a pirated copy of Adobe Acrobat. No problem. Pirate Bay.

This summer, while two American journalists (Euna Lee and Laura Ling) who had blundered their way illegally into North Korean territory were cooling their heels in a Pyongyang guest house, Åström, Källstigen and Ohlsson traveled to North Korea to oversee production, to meet the workers who would produce their jeans and to check on the working conditions.

Although the Swedes found the North Koreans to be serious micro-managers, they also liked Swedish vodka.

And today, hipster fashion hounds around the world who can afford to part with $220 will be able to get their hands on NoKo Jeans' first designs each numbered and labeled "Manuevers in the Dark," in slim or loose fit, and, of course, only in black, Dear Leader.