One sports a Christian Dior handbag and favors Western clothes. The other carries a notebook and wears dark uniforms. These fashion opposites are the two most influential women in North Korea.

While Kim Jong Un's wife, Ri Sol Ju, and younger sister, Kim Yo Jong, are currently allies in sustaining one of the world's most reclusive leaders, their overlapping influence makes them potential rivals in a regime where family ties aren't strong enough to protect against Kim's penchant for purges.

These women of Pyongyang offer insight to an opaque regime that, while struggling to feed its people, is capable of maintaining 1.2 million men under arms and threatening neighbors with nuclear annihilation. Ri commands a growing following among the wives of North Korean elite while Kim Yo Jong now holds a senior position in the ruling Workers' Party and serves as an adviser to her brother.