It was as a young journalist working in Cuba in 1989 that I was first astonished by the raw power of an everyday item of clothing: a humble pair of blue jeans.
I'd been sent as a budding expert on Communist countries to uncover the whereabouts of an AIDS detention camp, where those with HIV were imprisoned to prevent the spread of the virus.
Jose collected them when I was out of sight. In return, he put me in touch with a man who dropped me outside the secret detention centre to chase my story. Titchmarsh's BBC series Garden Secrets has apparently been judged wholesome enough to become a fixture on state TV since 2022. Banned as a symbol of U.S. imperialism since the early 1990s, his jeans, however, have not made the cut.
But international fashion could not be stopped at the Iron Curtain. Despite government efforts, Western trends, especially jeans, were most in vogue in the East. I soon became popular swapping second-hand Levi's and Wranglers for new editions of East German novels which were a scarcity.One friend had access to new jazz records on the state-owned Amiga label, my Bulgarian neighbours brought green and red peppers, sausages, vodka — and I provided jeans.
Advertisement All that effort for something which today no one would bat an eyelid at in Berlin, Warsaw or Moscow. Not so Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, though, where there is still a clampdown on Western 'decadence'.
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