Open House: Archives

It was exactly one year and 4 days ago I wrote a blog entry about a very interesting trio of Swedes starting up a business in a first-ever attempt to sell jeans made from North Korea.

I'm excited to share that this past Saturday, Noko Jeans officially launched—but not without controversy. The PUB department store, located in Stockholm, made the decision to remove these North Korean-made designer jeans only a few hours before its opening once management learned of its label. "For us this is not a question of Noko Jeans – this is a question about a political issue that PUB doesn't want to be associated with," said Rene Stephansen, the store's director. More on this shut-down on the Washington Post and BBC News.

From the beginning of this venture, Noko Jeans was very intentional about being transparent and open about their purpose of doing business with North Korea by posting behind-the-scene videos, photos, blogs and tweets throughout the whole process that started over 2 1/2 years ago.

And now, from following the flurry of tweets, news coverage and blogs, it's clear that getting shut down was probably the best thing to have happened for Noko Jeans' PR. Of course, this has caused some scrambling to find another location for the Noko Jeans Museum (the name of their retail presence), but I doubt they will have any trouble with this.

This is a real-world example of how being transparent and using social media are so effectively spreading the message and story for Noko Jeans. And that story is creating an emotional following that is helping to indirectly, but powerfully raise more awareness for the company.

This line from their Web site is at the heart of Noko Jeans and why I want to personally see them succeed:

"To learn and realize that there are people living in North Korea, and even befriend some of them, has been overwhelming, and is the true core of the story we tell. Beyond every mass-game are people, living and breathing and not that different from us, or you."

Once another location for the Noko Jeans Museum is announced and the online shop is up and running on their Web site, it will be interesting to see how much of their following will translate to actual sales of these $220 designer jeans (only 1100 pair of jeans were produced).