South Korea's First Lady Kim Keon Hee's Dior bag stirs political scandal; opposition calls her Marie Antoinette

South Korea's First Lady Kim Keon Hee has stirred up a controversy after accepting an expensive Dior bag, approximately worth ₹2 lakh, as a gift.

A controversy surrounding the First Lady of South Korea, Kim Keon Hee, accepting an expensive luxury bag from Dior as a gift has gripped the country. According to South Korean law, it is illegal for public officials and their spouses to accept any gift worth more than 1 million won in one go or a total of 3 million won within a year. The Dior bag costs 3 million won (USD 2,200 or ₹1,86,811). Scroll down to know how the costly fashion item has thrown the ruling People Power Party (PPP) into disarray and threatened the prospects of President Yoon Suk Yeol's party in April's elections.

File photo shows South Korean First Lady Kim Keon Hee posing at the Samsung Guide Dog School in Yongin. (AFP)

South Korea's First Lady Kim Keon Hee's Dior bag controversy

A spy camera footage - released late last year - has revealed that Kim Keon Hee received a Dior bag as a gift presented to her by a pastor. A left-wing YouTube channel, Voice of Seoul, posted the clip. According to them, the pastor, Choi Jae-young, secretly filmed himself buying the bag and gifting it to Kim Keon Hee using a camera embedded in his watch. The video shows the pastor purchasing a greyish-blue calfskin Dior bag from a store. The receipt puts the bag's cost at 3 million won. After the purchase, he visits Covana Contents, a company in Seoul owned by the First Lady. There, she asks him, 'Why do you keep bringing me these things?' Reportedly, the bag was bought by pastor Choi Jae-young in September 2022.

The video doesn't show Kim Keon Hee accepting the bag. However, according to the Korea Herald, the presidential office confirmed receipt of the bag and said it was "being managed and stored as a property of the government."

The video has caused an uproar in South Korea, with people demanding an explanation from the president about his wife's actions. The opposition also stated that the ruling party cannot dismiss the issue by apologising. And last week, Kim Kyung-yul, another PPP leader, compared the 51-year-old First Lady with Marie Antoinette, the notorious French Queen known for her extravagant ways.