Nail salons, massage parlors, cafes and other signs of consumerism were unheard of in rigidly controlled North Korea just a few years ago, but they are slowly emerging in one of the world's last bastions of Cold War socialism.

North Korea operates a centrally planned economy modeled on the former Soviet Union where Western-style conspicuous consumption is anathema.

But as a growing middle class of North Koreans earns more money in the unofficial economy, the demand for products such as cosmetics, smartphones, imported fruit juices and foreign clothes is on the rise, according to residents and visitors.