Academic Dress
Academic Dress simply means that dress which is appropriate to an academic. If you are asked to wear academic dress (as opposed to ‘Full Academic Dress’, which includes sub fusc), this will mean the appropriate wear for your academic status above smart clothes.
Appropriate wear for your academic status will depend on whether or not you are a student, or already possess a degree.
If you are only a student, appropriate wear will be just your gown. If you already possess a degree, this will be the gown and hood appropriate to the senior-most degree you hold. For those institutions which do not regularly award hoods, the signifier of a degree may take the form of an epitoge, hat (and sword), etc. You should be familiar with your own institution’s regulations; this guide is primarily concerned with the University of Oxford.
Note that this is the senior-most degree, not degrees, you hold: do not wear the gown which appertains to one degree with the hood of another (this is known as ‘mixed bathing’). If from two different institutions at the same level (e.g. you hold a master’s degree from UCL and KCL), this is your choice.
However, if you are attending an event at a university from which you hold a degree, it is customary to wear the dress appropriate to the senior-most degree you hold from that university, unless you are attending in virtue of your holding a degree from another university.
At Oxford, the Master of Arts (MA) degree confers seniority within the university. If you hold the Oxford MA you may (I would argue should) wear its gown and hood in preference to any other unless you hold an Oxford DD or DCL (Doctorate in Divinity and Civil Law respectively).
Unless otherwise noted all images on this page are sourced from the Burgon Society Archive, which can be found here.
Oxford Gowns
There are two main classes of gown at Oxford, with a few different gowns in each class. These are gowns for students, and gowns for graduates.
Gowns for Students
Gowns for students are those gowns worn by individuals who are reading (studying) for an Oxford degree, provided they do not already hold an Oxford degree.
There are three types of gowns for students: commoners’, scholars’, and advanced students’. You should know (and be in possession) of the one that is relevant to you. Exemplar pictures of each can be seen on the sub fusc page.
There are occasions throughout the university calendar, however, when someone who is a student at Oxford may wear the academic dress of another university. On such occasions, when dress codes are enforced and gowns are required, a special note with the dress code will indicate that ‘foreign’ academic dress is permitted. On such occasions it is sometimes observed that ‘the more colourful the better’.
Gowns for Graduates
Gowns for graduates are those gowns worn by individuals who hold Oxford degrees. Unlike the students gowns, these gowns should be worn long and should fall at least to the lower calf, if not the traditional ankle-length.
There are five types: the bachelor’s, the master’s, the lay master’s, the doctoral undress, and the doctoral scarlet.
Bachelor’s Gown
The bachelors of arts and other junior (first degree) bachelors wear this gown. It is of the so-called ‘clerical’ pattern, seen by the delicate pencil pleating at the back which is a reminder of the heritage of the degree as associated with the church (it is seen also, for example, on better-made choristers’ surplices). The sleeves are open, and the back of the sleeve is long and tapers to a point (about) level with the hem.
Master’s Gown
The master’s gown is today worn only by masters of arts and bachelors of divinity (which is a master’s level degree). It is also of the ‘clerical’ pattern, and has long closed sleeves with a crescent-shaped cut-out at the bottom. These sleeves were originally much like coat or jacket sleeves, except they kept getting longer and less practical: eventually, they were lengthened to the bottom of the gown and a slit was inserted around elbow-height to free the arm.
The Lay Master’s Gown
The Lay Master’s Gown is one of the most common in Oxford because of the proliferation of master’s degrees. All masters except the MA wear this, and so do all ‘masters level’ bachelors (the bachelors of philosophy, civil law, etc.).
It is of the so-called ‘lay’ pattern, seen from the large ‘flap’ collar instead of the pencil pleating, and comes to us from the fashions of Tudor England instead of the medieval church. The elaborate gimp lace which decorates the body of the collar, body of gown, and the sleeves, renders this in the author’s opinion the second most beautiful gown in the English-speaking world (especially if a proper specimen, in grosgrain silk, is sourced).
Doctoral Undress Gown
Oxford is one of the few universities left which gives doctors a choice of academic dress to wear. The scarlet ‘full dress’ or ‘festal’ gown being considered inappropriate for daily wear, particularly at college dinners, doctors at Oxford have black undress gowns which they may wear at occasions where black gowns are specified (and otherwise at the college dinners when the doctoral scarlet would be conspicuous). This is the only doctoral gown which is worn with a hood (at Oxford, the full dress scarlet gown is not worn with a hood).
Oxford’s new professional doctorates (in engineering and clinical psychology) have not been assigned a doctoral scarlet gown and so only have this gown to wear (with their hood, which is also not of the traditional ‘full’ shape – see below).
The gown is again a lay-type gown with gimp lace decoration: it differs from the Lay Master’s Gown with a small patch (sometimes rendered as a oval, pentagon, or triangle) of the same lace on the body of the gown, under the sleeve near the top (so, really, near the armpit). These patches of lace are circled in red in these pictures.
Doctoral Scarlet Gown
The doctoral scarlet gown is the most lavish of all the gowns. It is a clerical type gown, with large bell-shaped sleeves, with a lining and facing down the front and on the sleeves of a specific colour of silk: blue for philosophy, grey for science and letters, and scarlet for civil law and medicine. The exception is divinity, which wears a sombre black velvet.
This system, by the way, reflects Oxford’s old system that colours denoted not faculty (or field of study) but rank – the two second-most senior doctors were civil law and medicine, the ‘new’ doctorates of science and letters were junior to them, and the ‘supervised research’ doctorate in philosophy (introduced in the early 20th century in emulation of the German system) the most junior of the lot.
The exception to this ‘system’ is the gown of a doctor of music, which is not of scarlet cloth material but rather a cream silk with an apple blossom pattern, lined and faced with (hot?) pink. It is perhaps the most beautiful gown in the English-speaking world.
Oxford Hoods
The main thing to know about Oxford hoods is which colour corresponds to which degree. There are three different shapes of hood, but that is less important for now.
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Which Gown to Wear as a Continuing Student?
This question is usually asked by undergraduates who continue to master’s or doctoral study. You should wear the gown of the seniormost degree you hold, presuming you’ve had the ceremony and actually received it. This means the BA or the Lay Masters (MPhys/MMath/MChem etc.) gown.
It is technically incorrect either to wear the commoner’s gown (which denotes undergraduate student status) or the scholar’s gown (which denotes a scholarship you no longer hold). The university will probably agree that you may wear the Advanced Student’s Gown (as a gown denoting postgraduate student status), but that should also be, strictly speaking, incorrect as that gown is intended for students without a prior Oxford degree.
The lattermost comment above applies also if you are an MPhil continuing onto DPhil study.
In practice I suspect nobody cares much – the only occasions will be matriculation photos (which you need not attend – as you do not matriculate again), examinations (if you have any in person) and graduations (when, depending on the programme, you will start in the gown of the degree you are about to take anyway).
History of Gowns and Hoods
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