to wonder if peoples definition of Chav/Chavvy varies greatly

[GirlOutNumbered]

This is a bit of a post about a post. Some one said that a girl in a barbour jacket would be chavvy. I have never, ever seen a Chav in a barbour jacket.

A chav down here is someone who wears a tracksuit most of the time and jeans with a polo shirt when going out on the town. The girls would wear tracksuit tucked into ugg style boots, the boys trainers.

Whats a chav where you are?

Barbour jackets are being assililated into chav culture, in much the same way as Burberry. As to the definition of chavishness, I'd have to include lary, wide-boyish behaviour, perma-tans, a fixation with branded/designer goods, a general aversion to reading, towie fanatacism, long gaudy artifical nails, certain tattoos, text speak yadayada...

Has little to do with class and everything to do with style and attitude in my opinion.

Soz, Col.

My mother who thankfully I don't have a relationship with anymore described a chav as one of the 'underclasses'. Charming eh.

Newcastle, that ones a myth.

Anyway, I can be perfectly violent from my private let

^You cannot try to define chav on MN. There is a risk it might implode. People get very upset about it.

But let's face it, although we might not be able to define chavvy, we all know it when we see it.^

Internet sites have a habit of dying or becoming stagnant when people cannot sincerely discuss certain topics for fear of vilification. You're absolutely right, deep down everyone has a mental preconditioned image of what a "chav" is... Ergo its a valid topic for discussion. Why the need to be disingenuous about everything? To pretend that we're all lovely and judgemental when that patently isn't the case. We all stereotype, judge etc

Barbour jackets = chavtastic.

Paired with hunters or uggs and you're off the scale!

It's the uniform take up of such items of clothing, the total lack of imagination in the masses who buy them, that make them what they are.

Immature take on the world/sense of entitlement/quick to defend person either with violence or threats of

Orange make up

Scraped back dyed hair

Loudness

fake branded clothing/shoes

fake jewellery and lots of it

These are the things that define it, to me

Im still amazed about the Barbour jackets. Maybe it's where we live. To be honest I can't remember the last time I saw anyone in a Barbour jacket down here. They all wear super dry, timberland or helly Hanson

Unless you live out of town, then it's all north face or berghaus.

You've never seen anyone in a short quilted belted Barbour? Amazing!

difference between a genuine 'chav' and being or wearing something 'chavvy' is important, I'd suggest V Beckham is 'chavvy' or wears 'chavvy' stuff but is not loud or unpleasant enough to be an actua; 'chav' iyswim

I'd say she was pretentious though

I wear Barbour. I wear uggs. I shop in John Lewis. I grew up on a council estate.

I am what I am, it seems though not welcome here.

I just looked at one on google to check and no, they haven't made it down here. Our chavs don't wear hunters either.

I do have hunters but got them several years ago and they're very mucky and used
and a barbour but it's not quilted or pink and I don't think I'd be described a chavvy because I don't subscribe to other current fashions, ie straightened blonde dyed hair, make up, looking tidy while wearing said jacket.

More by luck than judgment!

I disagree re the hunters and barbours - round here the "chavs" dont follow fashion any more than any other group, they have their own dress code and so far that doesnt include hunters and barbours (though it does include fuggs. Very rarely real ones, and if they are real, its highly likely they are off the back of a lorry - I have chavvy friends, this is fact in their case, not generalisation!)

The regular fashion followers may look like chavs, just because it is a fashionable look at the moment, just as goth or "rock chick" (pfft) have their moments in the fashion limelight. These are at the moment here anyway the ones in the actual brands.
But they arent chavs, because it isnt just the look, its the state of mind

God, I dont half write some crap

and loads of nice, normal people dress that way too.

My definition of a chav is this:

Someone who's never worked and has no intention of doing so
Lives of benefits and scrounges all they can get
Has lots of different children by numerous partners
Has no respect for anyone or anything.

I don't think the term chav has any real connection to working class people. It's about attitude and behaviour. I have worked with the full range of classes in my professional role and can honestly say that in general working class people treat me with much greater respect and show more manners than many of the middle / upper class people I have worked with, and generally have less of a sense of entitlement.
Like the term chav or not there is a certain group of people who always look angry, often seem to view parenthood as a nuisance and spend much of their time shouting at their poor children, wear labels, bling and sportswear and the teenage boys all wear jogging bottoms with their hands down the front!! That's an observation from my travels locally!

It's not following fashion it's adopting a uniform.

When I was at school (and I'm 40 now, so this is going back 25 years) 'chav' was commonly used as a racist term of abuse for gypsies.

This is, of course, fairly irrelevant to the thread.

I'mtoohecsy I think class has less impact that it used to and that people can and do move from one class to another. Since higher education became more freely available to all the middle classes, as they were defined in the 1800s and early 1900s, have become much much larger. 70 years ago my family would definitely have been described as working class, but as it is now made up of doctors, engineers, accountants, academics etc I think it an inappropriate way to describe them. I think a lot of formerly upper class people have lost their money and manor houses over the last 100 years too, and now despite thinking they are better than everyone else are no different to any other family that has to work for a living.

What I do think the nation is obsessed with, and regularly calls class, is in fact socio-economic groupings. This results in a vast number more groups than the class system. It incorporates non-working people, people working for minimum wage, people working for millions, nouveau riche, WAGS, used-to-bes etc And in terms of this conversation, you can have people who might be described as chavvy in several of these groupings.

There is a vital comma missing from my diatribe above...

V Beckham is 'chavvy' or wears 'chavvy' Maybe back in her wag days but these days she wears couture daaaahling. Don't you mean Katie Price?