Kang, the designer who fled from North Korea: “My fight for dissidents”

Jihyun Kang | he was 15 when he first saw a Westerner in his home country of North Korea. He was very tall, had a full beard and wore ripped jeans. “I had never seen anyone dressed like him. In North Korea you can’t wear jeans, let alone ripped,” recalls the girl speaking to Republic from his small office in Seoul, the capital of South Korea, where, like many of his fellow countrymen who fled the North Korean regime, he found refuge ten years ago.