Kim Jong Un fuels succession buzz with daughter's matching leather jacket

As Kim Jong Un affirms his authority over North Korea at a rare party congress, speculation is growing that his teenage daughter Ju Ae is closer to being named his successor.

Does a family that dresses together, rule together?

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, whose family has held an iron grip on the nuclear-armed state for decades, reaffirmed his authority this week at a rare meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party. But speculation is growing that he is grooming his teenage daughter to succeed him one day, fueled in part by their matching outfits at a military parade.

The parade in Pyongyang on Wednesday capped the weeklong party congress, the first since 2021, and displayed North Korea’s growing military capabilities.

State media photos released Thursday showed Kim, 42, and his daughter Kim Ju Ae standing with senior officials at a podium overlooking soldiers marching in formation. Kim and his daughter appeared in the same black leather jacket, which Kim often wears at public events.

“When his young daughter is wearing the same symbolic attire, it’s hard to see it as a coincidence,” Lim Eul-chul, a professor at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies at Kyungnam University in Seoul, told NBC News. “It is more likely to be a deliberate move to tell the North Korean public that Kim Ju Ae is her father’s heir.”