Posted on 12/06/2009 3:33:24 AM PST by TigerLikesRooster
Department store cancels sale of Swedish jeans made in N.Korea
Jeans confiscated because of 'working conditions in North Korea'. -AFP
Sun, Dec 06, 2009
AFP
STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN - A Swedish department store on Saturday cancelled what was to be the sale of the "first ever" brand of jeans made in North Korea, the Swedish company behind the communist-made dark denims said.
"Apparently PUB has censored our exhibition/store by shutting it down and 'confiscating' the jeans because of the 'working conditions in North Korea'," Jakob Ohlsson of company Noko Jeans told AFP in an email.
"At first i thought it was a joke but everything has been removed from the store," he added.
Ohlsson, along with Jacob Aastroem and Tor Rauden Kaellstigen -- all under the age of 25 and with no previous experience in business or fashion -- started Noko Jeans in mid-2007, prompted by a desire to enter in contact with isolationist North Korea.
Their designer jeans were to be sold starting Saturday at Aplace, a boutique that is a tenant of the trendy PUB department store in central Stockholm.
"A half-hour before opening, we got a call from the head of the department store and he explained to me... that PUB cannot sell the Noko Jeans," Kalle Tollmar, the founder and CEO of Aplace told AFP.
"The explanation I got was that (the store's management) had taken the decision... that PUB is not the right place, or platform, for this kind of political discussion," he said, confirming his store was hoping to continue distribution of the controversial duds at another location.
The Noko sales space at PUB was deserted on Saturday, the jeans removed and and surrounding photo exhibition taken down by the department store's security.
(Excerpt) Read more at asiaone.com ...
Ping!
Tuesday I bought a baseball cap with the Vietnam servce medal embroidered across the front of it. The cap, of course was made in Vietnam (had a big old label sewn inside it).
......Bob
Just wait...there will be some Free Trader Globalist that will whine about “isolationism” and “protectionism” because this Swedish company decided not to deal with a Communist nation.
The Free Trader Globalists do that every time whenever Americans want to do away with FRee Trade with Communist China....Com. China are the main supporters of North Korea.
Kudos to Swedish company for not allowing the NoKo Communist goods coming in. Trade with a Communist nation only benefits Communism
Of course they would not sell such goods.
But then they would turn around and sell goods from North Korea which on a human rights plane, is at least 100x worse than South Africa under Apartheid. Cannibalism--for one thing, for starters.
Basically those jeans are all slave labor origin, just fancied up for the gullible, shameless free, fat, ignorant West.
PS Hats off to PUB for pulling that crap off the rack. I just might write them an e mail for doing the morally right thing.
http://vimeo.com/5127218
"Maybe we can understand them" cr*p they would never allow for an authoritarian, anti-communist regime with 1/10th the human rights issues of DPRK.
I so hope the founders a) try to sell them in the US, b) some dimwit entrepreneur in the US would take them up on it and then c) the Feds would raid the place, while the Swedes are in the country, and all parties would go to the slammer and/or get slapped with hefty fines under "Trading With The Enemy Act", of which dealing with North Korean products is illegal under US law. It is reprehensible selling anything by this regime in the West.
Exactly. I got what you mean. Well I guess they got the publicity they were looking for. Now it will be a novelty to get a pair of them, some small outlets of irresponsible types will give them the platform they want, and the Norks the money they desperately need.
“— all under the age of 25 and with no previous experience in business or fashion —”
-or higher morality.
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