The media has already dubbed it South Korea's “Kate gate”. The elegant and admired First Lady, Kim Keon-hee, 51, has not been seen for several months, since the famous Dior bag scandal broke out. His disappearancejust as in the case of the Princess of Wales, aroused uproar and questions primarily in her country, but the news of her absence quickly around the world.
The last public appearance was last December in the Netherlands where the South Korean presidential couple went for a two-day state visit and were welcomed by King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands and Queen Màxima. The trip aimed to promote and celebrate diplomatic, economic and cultural ties between the two countries for Dutch-Korean cooperation in the field of innovation and development of the semiconductor industry.
At the end of last November, the president of South Korea and his wife flew to London to see King Charles and Queen Camilla, who, in honor of the presidential couple, organized a glittering state banquet at Buckingham Palace which was also attended by the K-pop musical group Blackpink. The President of South Korea and the First Lady, wrapped in an elegant gray coat, were welcomed in London by the Princes of Wales in a central hotel and greeted with a formal welcoming ceremony at the Horse Guards Parade, where the King and Queen they were waiting for them.
Although some commentators haveThe First Lady's disappearance was attributed to the designer handbag affair and the upcoming April elections in South Korea, However, it is strange that the woman, always quite active on the Korean political scene since her husband Yoon Suk-yeol took office in 2022, is no longer seen. The decision to “freeze” the First Lady for a while may have been taken by the leading political party (Popular Power) at this time of “election period, due to the scandals of which the First Lady, nicknamed the “Marie Antoinette of Seoul”, she became the protagonist. “To garner the most votes for the party, it is best to make issues, including the Dior bag controversy, forgotten,” Sojin Lim, professor of Korean studies at the University of Lancashire, told The Independent.
A few months ago Kim Keon Hee, whose love of designer clothes and designer luxury bags is well known, has been dragged into a political storm, with the accusation of having accepted as a gift a Christian Dior designer handbag worth three million won, approximately 2,000 euros. The first rumors started when a stolen video was published online showing the Korean-American reverend-fixer, Abraham Choi Jae-young, offering Kim a blue leather “Lady Dior Pouch” bag. “Why do you keep wearing them? Please, you don't have to do that,” the First Lady says in the video. The video does not show the wife of the president of South Korea physically taking the bag from Choi, but the bag is seen placed on a table with the two talking. According to Choi, the meeting took place in Kim's office of his art exhibition company in September 2022, months after Yoon took office as president. Choi later said he recorded it with a camera hidden in his wristwatch. THE
The video was published more than a year later by Voice of Seoul, a YouTube channel known for being highly critical of Yoon's government. However, South Korea's anti-corruption law prohibits public officials and their spouses from receiving gifts worth more than one million won. Since the First Lady didn't appear to have refused the bag, the video raised a fuss and Kim was accused of exploiting her position of power for personal gain, causing the approval rating of the People's Party of which her husband Yoon is a member to collapse. The latter publicly addressed the accusations, claiming that the publication of the video had been carefully planned in view of the April vote. “This is clearly a political stunt with hidden camera footage captured a year ago and released shortly before the elections,” the president said in an interview with public broadcaster KBS. Shin Pyeong, a lawyer and close supporter of Yoon, pointed the finger at the patriarchal system present in conservative South Korean society, stating that at the origin of the scandal “there is the dark side of misogyny”. “There is no other way to explain this strange rage against Kim,” he said in a social media post last January, adding that in South Korea “prejudice against women is still deeply rooted.”
Kim Keon Hee, 51, is not the typical First Lady of South Korea. Unlike her predecessors, who mostly kept a low profile in her husband's shadow, Kim has her own fan club and seems comfortable in the spotlight: is a passionate promoter of South Korean culture, she is very attentive to her style and her looks are always very well looked after. So much so that her outfits, shown off on trips abroad with Yoon, have attracted the attention of fashion experts over the years who have compared her style, elegant and impeccable, to that of other fashion icons such as Queen Rania of Jordan , Jackie Kennedy and Kate Middleton. Graduated in art history, like Kate, Kim had already started her career in organizing exhibitions with the company Covana Contents, when she married the current South Korean president in 2012 with whom she had no children.
Over the years the political opposition has unleashed itself against her by saying the worst atrocities: from accusations of corruption to those of academic plagiarism. There First Lady Kim Keon-hee was accused by some professors of copying parts of her doctoral research, thesis and other published articles without citing sources. Kim was later cleared of the charges after an investigation by Kookmin University, which cleared the woman of any wrongdoing.
Today the mystery remains as to where she is and when we will see her again.
Source: Vanity Fair
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