North Korea’s state broadcaster, KCTV, has blurred out a pair of jeans worn by veteran British TV host Alan Titchmarsh as part of the country’s censorship of foreign fashion and culture.

At one point he can be seen kneeling in a flowerbed, and keen-eyed viewers will notice that the lower half of his body has been blurred to obscure the jeans he is wearing.

“I’ve never seen myself as a dangerous subversive imperialist - I’m generally regarded as rather cosy and pretty harmless, so actually it’s given me a bit of street cred really hasn’t it?” he said.

“The act aims to prohibit North Korean residents from imitating foreign countries in various aspects, including how they’re dressed and speak,” he said.

Peter Ward, a research fellow at the Sejong Institute in South Korea, said the censorship is part of a fight against “anti-socialist culture and ideology.”

“Blue jeans are associated with ‘decadent’ Western culture, as they were in the Soviet Union, and Kim Jong Il ordered officials to rid the country of them back in the 1990s,” he said.

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