North Korean cheer squad is playing a different Olympic game

WINTER Olympics fashion has, largely, been a tale of two events: the opening and closing ceremonies, where national costume comes out to play; and figure skating, where the aesthetic swings and swoops from Vegas-on-ice to Vera Wang, with a touch of Broadway and Diaghilev thrown in. As of this week, however, a new factor was added to the mix: the North Korean cheerleading squad.

Approximately 230 young women strong, the squad arrived for the Pyeongchang Games in matching red wool coats, buttoned at the waist, with black fur trim at the neck and wrists and matching black caps, high-heeled ankle boots and sheer hosiery. They toted matching red wheelies and handbags, and all grinned matching grins.

Imagine a cross between Pan Am "stewardesses" of the 1960s, "Red Sparrow" and the Dallas Cowboys squad, and you'll get the idea. In North Korea they are reportedly known as "the army of beauties." For a country whose image is defined largely by the figure of its leader, Kim Jong Un, with his severe military dress and strange trapezoidal hairstyle, the cheer squad provides a visual message of a different kind.