Kim Jong-un Looks Like He's Wearing Lifts
When you’re a brutal dictator who has kept your countrymen sequestered from a free press, the international community, or the Vogue.com archives, no one expects you to be a pillar of personal style. That hasn’t kept North Korea’s Kim Jong-un’s sartorial and grooming choices from popping up in the online discourse in the past, however. Anyone who was Very or even Moderately Online in early 2015 probably remembers when the gentleman who had his education minister executed by firing squad for bad posture shaved off half his eyebrows and shaped his hair into a slicked-back trapezoidal flat top. The look garnered an enormous amount of attention, and helped begin a conversation about whether paying attention to a dictator’s hairstyle came at the expense of engaging with his crimes against humanity. (If I remember correctly, I think we landed on Yes, it does and it’s bad, but I was busy writing 10 Things Kim Jong-un’s New Haircut Looks Like, so who knows).
But all this brings us to the topic at hand: Kim Jong-un’s historic summit with President Trump—or, more specifically, Kim's lifts. Yes, as best as we can tell, North Korea's Supreme Leader stood on the global stage wearing wide-leg pants that did their best to cover up an unusual pair of shoes—ones tall enough toward the back to contain a few extra inches of artificial height. Which led to obvious speculation: Kim was (allegedly) wearing lifts! Kim stands 5’7”, a far cry from Trump’s 6’3”, and apparently felt insecure enough about this disparity that he had some poor North Korean shoemaker make him a special pair of laceless dress shoes with built-in height inserts. Or maybe it was strategy: it’s well-established that the U.S. President is obsessed with body language (i.e.: his interminable handshakes or his creepy looming during the debates), and that he prefers his cabinet members "straight out of central casting." So being able to meet Trump’s eye-line was probably a well-calculated move by the North Koreans. But still…lifts!
Apparently shoes with inserts are more common in Korea, both North and South, but that hasn’t stopped the shoes from becoming the latest flashpoint on Twitter. As the “fire shoes” and “bootcut bandit” jokes start to roll in, it’s normal to feel equal parts amusement and fatigue. The internet thrives on detached irony, so it’s understandable that photos of Vladimir Putin riding shirtless on horseback or Jong-un’s fancy haircut—or, in this case, a suspiciously tall Kim Jong-un capture our attention. Most of us feel helpless in the face of ongoing international atrocities, and dunking on their perpetrators on Twitter functions is always a helpful outlet. So get those jokes off—and save a prayer for that North Korean cobbler.
