Graduation Ceremony Arc

A formal tradition rooted in medieval practicality, now reserved for ceremonies and official occasions.

via Wikipedia: Academic dress · see source

Academic dress is a traditional form of clothing for academic settings, mainly tertiary (and sometimes secondary) education, worn mainly by those who have obtained a university degree (or similar), or hold a status that entitles them to assume them (e.g., undergraduate students at certain old universities). It is also known as academical dress, academicals, or academic regalia. Contemporarily, it is commonly seen only at graduation ceremonies, but formerly academic dress was, and to a lesser degree in many ancient universities still is, worn daily. Today, the ensembles are distinctive in some way to each institution, and generally consist of a gown (also known as a robe) with a separate hood, and usually a cap (generally a square academic cap, a tam, or a bonnet). Academic dress is also worn by members of certain learned societies and institutions as official dress.

Quick Facts

Status: Completed Arc

Lore & Background

The academic dress found in most universities in the Commonwealth of Nations and the United States is derived from that of the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, which was a development of academic and clerical dress common throughout the medieval universities of Europe. This overgarment had the practical purpose of keeping a scholar warm while they were sitting, immobile, or studying. Formal or sober clothing is typically worn beneath the gown: for example, men would often wear a dark suit with a white shirt and a tie, or clerical clothing, military or civil uniform, or national dress, and women would wear equivalent attire. Some older universities, particularly Oxford and Cambridge, have a prescribed set of dress (known as subfusc) to be worn under the gown, though this sometimes refers only to requiring the proper wear of academic dress and not what is worn beneath it, if unseen. In the Commonwealth, gowns are worn open, while in the United States, with a few exceptions, it has become common for gowns to close at the front, as did the original roba.

Reader's Guide

In France, academic dress, also called the toge (from the word toga, an ancient Roman garment), is similar to French judges' court dress, except for its colour, which depends on the academic field in which the wearer graduated. It is nowadays little worn, except by doctors during the opening of the university year or the ceremony for a doctorate honoris causa. For doctors, it consists of: a long gown (a bit similar to a cassock) with a long row of buttons (traditionally, 33, but nowadays usually fewer) in front and a train at the back (which in the current costume is not visible but attached with a button in the inner side of the gown). The gown is in two colours: black and the standard colour of the academic field in which the wearer graduated, with simars (two vertical bands in the front of the gown). An épitoge (epitoga): A piece of cloth with white fur stripes (three for doctors) attached by a button on the left shoulder, with a rectangular, long, thin tail in the front and a triangular, shorter, broad tail in the back (both tails carry the fur stripes); its colour is that of the relevant academic field. The epitoga has evolved from the academic hood, which explains why the French academic dress does not include a hood. A long, wide belt or sash, either black or of the colour of the relevant academic field, ended by fringes (which may be golden or of the same colour as the belt), and attached with a broad, ornamental knot. A white rabat (jabot), over which a white tie may be worn for ceremonial occasions: It is made of lace for the dean of the faculty, the president of the university, and a few other officials, of plain cotton for others. Traditionally only for men, a mortarboard of the colour of the relevant academic field with a golden stripe, which is usually not worn but carried (since the academic dress in France is rarely worn outdoors, and men are not supposed to wear hats indoors), and often even omitted. Nowadays the practice is more relaxed, and the mortarboard is sometimes seen worn by women or worn indoors by men. In principle, a white bow tie (for men only ; quite rarely seen) and white gloves (nowadays never used). Professors who served 20 years are sometimes presented with a sword (identical model to that of French police commissars). The colours of the various academic fields are daffodil (yellow) for literature and arts, amaranth (purplish red) for science, redcurrant (reddish pink) for medicine, scarlet red for law, and violet (purple) for theology. University rectors, chancellors or presidents wear also specific costumes, which are violet regardless of the academic field in which they graduated. The dress exists in two versions: the petit costume ("small costume") and the grand costume ("great costume"). Both are identical in form, and differ only in the presence or absence of the mortarboard and the repartition.