Material World

One of the weirder pieces of news to emerge from London Fashion Week so far comes not from a boldface fashion name, but a Savile Row tailor, Cad and the Dandy: it has just gifted a suit to Kim Jong-eun.

Yes, that is correct: North Korea’s new leader. Forget Alexa Chung and other front-row stalwarts seen at shows from Mulberry to Matthew Williamson. This puts a new spin on celebrity dressing, not to mention penetrating the Asian market.

According to James Sleater, one of the brand’s founders, who also acknowledged this was the first time it had sent a suit of any kind to any head of state (it normally dresses folks like comedic actor David Walliams and Freddie Flintoff, the cricketer), “there is a lot of ill will in the world, and we wanted to address that in a light hearted way. We also thought it might be useful in helping him appreciate the West.” In other words: no, it’s not a joke (though they did admit they had a bit of a laugh when they got the idea).

The suit is not the young leader’s typical Mao-collared uniform. It is a navy blue wool (milled in Yorkshire) one-button number with slant pockets and a silver lining. That could be a metaphor, but it could also just be a sartorial coincidence; Mr Sleater didn’t acknowledge any covert symbolism.

So far, Mr Sleater also does not know how the suit has been received in North Korea; he has not had a response.

However, Cad and the Dandy is not the only men’s wear brand to see the value in dressing political leaders. Weatherproof, an American outerwear specialist, famously used an image of President Obama wearing a Weatherproof jacket during a trip in China on a billboard in 2010, in the belief that, company spokesperson Allan Cohen said at the time, politicians were “the new celebrities.”

The question remains whether Kim Jong-eun can be seen in the same light. When it comes to clothes, is all publicity good publicity? This is one way of getting an answer.