No retail gloom in N.Korea as women shop for dresses

LONDON (Reuters) – Fashion stores in high streets around the world may be suffering from the global financial crisis, but in communist North Korea women have gone on a dress-buying spree.

"Korean dress shops in Pyongyang are bustling with customers in the current spring season," the state news agency KCNA reported on Friday.

Workers had their hands full dealing with a deluge of orders, it said

KCNA quoted a worker in the Ryonghung Korean Dress Shop as saying: "All of them gasp their admiration for the graceful and fascinating costumes on show in the sample room."

The economy of reclusive North Korea is firmly in state hands and foreign analysts say it faces chronic problems, including food shortages.

The channeling of resources to military spending, including a missile program that has alarmed the West, has contributed to a dearth of consumer goods, they say.

KCNA, however, routinely lauds economic progress and extols leader Kim Jong-il for his inspirational leadership in all areas of society.

Unusually, he was not mentioned in the dress-buying report but KCNA noted: "The streets of Pyongyang, seething with a new revolutionary upsurge, look bright with beautiful women in chima jogori (Korean woman's skirt and coat) which give off national lyricism and aroma in spring."