"All fur coat no knickers" - where in UK or further afield?

[redwinetalking]

I have to admit I love this phrase and can think of several towns, areas and localities where "IMHO" it may have applied.

Obviously not travelled everywhere but what are you "FCNK" places?

Hmm, not sure that any of these places fit that phrase exactly, there is a fair bit off money around. More like fur coat AND designer knickers.

And actually I think Knutsford is quite nice. It has the nearest Booth's to where I live so I can forgive it a lot. I can take or leave Wilmslow though.

Actually though, men are judged by their property and women by their appearance and this is the basis of long-established sex roles.
So in a way the statement reflects what has always been the norm - that no culture anywhere values promiscuous women, however you dress it up.

Well, exactly. They are judged on that basis because of misogyny and sexism. We should not be perpetuating such harmful and ridiculous stereotypes hence people calling it out when phrases and language such as this so blatantly embed them further.

Never heard it used to describe a place!
Usually describes a person.

@zoom1982 also a northerner 👋 it has always meant a woman dressing to look classy or rich but being loose to me and mine. Fur coat - rich/brassy, no knickers - easy/loose morals.

Sayings and phrases evolve and can lose are used can evolve get applied to other things, like a done up motor with a nice paint job/dodgy engine etc, then their but it's original intention is to call certain women 'high class' prostitutes.

Someone's grandma used it to mean

People's differing interpretations can also be passed on to others. Someone mentioned it's not related to misogyny because they use it for men and call men's underwear knickers. That's as maybe but the origin of the phrase derives from being aimed at women's knickers. Any

Sent too soon and don't have edit function on app. Already spent too much time writing all that.

I'm so at the absolute certainty expressed by some people on this thread that the saying is "always" about a person and "never" about a place, despite lots of perfect examples of it being applied to places.

Don't people understand the concept of metaphor??

the phrase dervies from being UNDER wear. as it's about things under the surface being not quite what they appear.

Is it sexism that of all the phrases to depict this that it's women's underwear? Yes. But it doesnt acutally have anything to do with the meaning of the phrase, or a woman's sexual freedom.

My Eastender, London, Nan often used the term "all hat, fur coat and no knickers", so, in one form or another, it must have been well used, throughout the land. 🙂

Why Scarborough? It's one place with two very different sides to it but neither pretend to be something they're not. It does have two gold courses, not sure why that is relevant.

Sounds a bit snarky to me, I try not to judge. Why would you bother.

agree to disagree @BodegaSushi 🙂

Yes! I feel embarrassed of some of our ‘grand’ hotels. With poor plumbing and shabby decor in the rooms.

I always took it to mean that from the outside they looked well off but that as soon as they opened their mouth there was no mistaking where they came from.
The other phrase was red shoes/hat no knickers, refers to prostitutes they wore red hats so the punters could identify them.
Diana Dores always springs to mind with either phrase or Bet Lynch. Both loud and a little vulgar but dressed up well.
Dressed up like a dogs dinner was another northern phrase I grew up with.

I find lots of people use this phrase differently/wrongly

I always thought it meant someone who was flashy and affluent but without any class. More interested image and looking good than things like education.

A particularly nasty local group of mums who I would have said were FCNK (big cars, designer clothes but kids running amok) used to use it to describe other mums/families who were anything but imho....basically they used it ti describe anyone who moved into the area but didn't grow up there....mostly professionals, university educated....who they considered to be posh or "stuck up"

As an example.... they launched a campaign on FB against a friend of mine (calling her FCNK) who was on the PTA, running different community groups, trying to improve the area, she didn't work and had a posh accent, she had an allotment and shopped at Boden.

They took against her because she had critised a group of young teens (their sons) who were vandalising the park and swearing at young kids.

....it was very confusing

It doesn’t work to describe a place, it just sounds like you don’t understand the phrase.

It's quite an elitist phrase and I imagine used disparagingly towards working class women.

Lytham St Anne's is a lovely little place with a large retired population?

Of course it does. It’s also nothing to do with working class women.

@Cupcakekiller I'm a working class woman from the NW and started this thread - you are projecting

For anyone else who has followed this can I just say this was intended to be lighligearted. However, I recognise that others may see it differently.

I did not intend to start a feminist discourse and stated my understanding/lived-experience of a commonly used phrase (to me).

Apologies to those who thought I was making this out to be a north/south thing - I assumed it was northern phrase (my bad!)

Thank you to PP for the lemonade/champagne analogy - my favourite by far.

And as a footnote - I stand by my towns but anyone who says Liverpool is FCNK is an absolute bellend.

And as a footnote - I stand by my towns but anyone who says Liverpool is FCNK is an absolute bellend

From one scouser to another, bravo

Bath is FCNK.

Liverpool? Liverpool is no fur coat and no knickers either.

Outside of the UK, Nice is quite a good example of AFCNK. Looks sultry and glam, in reality it's trashy, seedy and rough around the edges.

Lol!

I have a friend in Nice and AFCNK had been said about her.