"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?

All fur coat and no knickers can be used to describe just about anything/anyone that/who promises much by way of appearance but delivers little by way of substance.

I’ve definitely heard the saying. “Flashy but trashy” could be a modern interpretation since fur isn’t really worn much these days. There are quite a few sayings that show how people resent things that are showy and see through them eg “champagne lifestyle, beer money”, “all the gear, no idea”

'Red dress and no knickers'. Means you're all show. Applies to women but I can see how it might be extended to towns. My grandparents used the phrase and they were born 1906 and 1909 in Yorkshire and Lancashire.

Let's just clear something up, anyone from the South who hasn't used or heard of a phrase - is not ignorant of the fact....it must be a 'northern' thing instead.....😂

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.
Similarly, “all mouth and no trousers”reflects that a man who can’t back himself up is lame. And no culture anywhere values lame men.

100% yes to Formby @redwinetalking

Not sure about Southport though, I wouldn't say it even has the fur coat these days

All of the UK 😂

It’s almost always used to describe a place!! Rarely ever heard it for person but frequently for a place. Great phrase from the older generation (Glasgow).
I like the net in the window one that’s new to me.

Australian here. I grew up in Sydney and heard this phrase for the first time only a decade ago, in my 40s, yet it rings so true to me. Someone with a snobby attitude, who privately skimps on the essentials so as to make a flashy display -- that is what the phrase says to me.

Some real-life examples:

Sends kids to school in shabby, outgrown uniforms, with shoe soles tied up with rubber bands and no sanpro for menstruating DD. Refuses to organise HS for DD. Challenged by teachers, responds by taking kids on six-week trip to California, including Disneyland, in school term.

Sends DS to elite selective school in dirty uniform with only one shirt, one set of briefs and one pair of socks for the week. Approached by neighbour, whose son attends same school, and offered free hand-me-downs. Physically assaults DS and throws him down the back steps for "shaming" them.

DD wins scholarship to decent private school. Refuses to buy DD uniform or school books because saving up for next flashy foreign trip. DD put on detention by school, with scholarship at risk. DD falls behind in maths and is put in remedial class.

DD wins second scholarship for Years 11 and 12. Refuses DD school books and uniform, says that in Charles Dickens's day children were sent out to work at 12.

Many years later, DS becomes live in carer. Refuses to let DS make essential repairs to the house, even simple things such as having the carpets steam cleaned for the first time in 40 years. DS so distraught he takes ADs. DD comes to help, has to wait until midnight to clean filthy house without interference.

Yes, I have had a gutful of AFCNK. It is a stressful and shitful way to exist. I raise my DC very differently, and with plentiful socks and knickers. Boring, as my DPs would say. But a solid foundation for life's adventures, which are best undertaken in adulthood.

Extended family members still mention my childhood travels. I politely refuse to discuss them. "But I'd love to tell you about my first backpacking trip in South America, saved up and paid for when I was 26." Oh, and I took heaps of knickers on that trip, and a good polarfleece, but no fur coat!

Knutsford

All fur coat and no knickers isn't just about style vs substance, it's about perceived class or lack of

My granny said this. Also, which I love,, ‘they have fruit even though they’re not ill’

It's definitely not a northern phrase. I heard it in use on the south coast. Always about women never places though.

I'm baffled as to why the phrase would be used to describe Liverpool. Formby, yes as a pp mentioned but Liverpool is brimming with substance. It definitely doesn't pretend to be something it's not. Come and visit us!

In the olden days when charity collectors came door to door, one told me that people on council estates gave money aplenty. Those on posh new housing estates couldn't, because all of their money went on huge mortgages.

She said they were all fur coat and no knickers.

@Nat6999 Has your son seen the movie Frantic? I reckon he'd love it: Paris at its most banal, starting in a dull five- star hotel and charging in suspenseful yet tongue-in-cheek style through airport corridors, freeways, funless nightclubs and dangerous rooftops. Harrison Ford's finest role, IMO.
And it definitely strips the fur coat off the, ahem, lingerie parisienne.

Cambridge

Te first few posts are painful.

Isle of Wight.

I’ve always known this phrase to mean that the woman is posh, because of the fur coat, but very easy to get sex off by multiple men, that’s why she doesn’t bother wearing knickers.
Im up north and that’s always what that has meant to people I have known from childhood.

In that area, I would think of Knutsford instead - very much the poor relation but full of people desperately trying to appear wealthy and wasting money on stupid perceived indicators of status.

I have often used AFCNK to describe Edinburgh.

Here you go.

Still laughing at the PP who said a place can't wear a coat or knickers 😂

I grew up in the same town (outside Manchester) where Mike Harding lived. He wrote a play called Fur Coat and No Knickers back in the early 80s.

Where I lived it was used to describe the people who lived in the one nice bit of that otherwise very deprived and grim town, and for people from Wilmslow, Knutsford, and expensive areas of Cheshire.

Cheltenham - lovely regency buildings, a few posh shops and people on the promenade but underneath strong drugs and crime culture and sink estates,

Thorpe Bay - 2 cars on the drive nothing in the fridge.