I, Chav
November 10th, 2004
I’ve
been meaning to write about last week’s Halloween fancy dress party
at work. Normally I hate fancy dress but I was a little more excited
about this one because of Lara’s genius suggestion to go as a Chav.
Like any good meme, the idea spread when I announced it to my colleagues and a total of 5 of us went as authentic members of the Burberry cap brigade. It was a lot of fun.
At this point some explanation is probably required for ex-pats and readers for whom keeping track of lowest-common-denominator cultural trends is not a priority. Definitions for Chav can be found aplenty across the Internet, but the most harsh (and my favourite) of them is "England’s peasant underclass". In fact this description isn’t even particularly accurate now that that the Chav uniform has reached such levels of ubiquity. It really doesn’t say much about you any more to be wearing a pair of Nike Shox, a tracksuit, cap, and as much 9ct Elizabeth Duke as you can carry.
For yes, by their clothes shall ye know them. Which of course is what makes it such good fancy dress.
Getting into character was especially fun. Simply being aggressively loud and rude in my best Sarf Landon accent seemed to do the trick, and kudos goes to Chavette Cassie (complete with fake pregnancy bump) for an exceptional and surprisingly resonant belch to disrupt the staff quiz.
Click the thumbnail for a group shot (what’s the correct collective noun? – a ‘scum’ of chavs?). L-R: Katie, Robotperson, Cassie, Sandy.
Shaat aap you muppets!!