#54: The Academic Gown
Tonight I will be going to a formal, a traditional meal at Durham University, where I shall eat, drink, and also, as tradition decrees, bang my spoon on the table a lot. I shall also wear a gown.
Most universities still have a system of gown-wearing for their graduation ceremonies, each graduate’s degree course adding slight alterations to the standard flowing garment. When I graduate this summer, I will wear a black gown with a white fur-lined hood. Classy.
At Durham, and other older universities, however, undergraduates still wear gowns for certain commitments. This might include chapel services, or, as is my case tonight, formals.
When I first wore my gown as a fresher, it was a novelty. I was batman, a dementor, Harry Potter himself, and various other black-cloak-wearing characters, all in one evening. I swept around college in a flurry of black, unironed fabric. I took seriously the rituals of when to wear and when to remove my gown during the meal. I felt like I had truly begun a new experience, the next chapter in my life, one in which wearing an antiquated item of clothing was perfectly normal.
And indeed now it is. My gown no longer has the freshers’ tell-tale ‘clean out of the packet’ folds. Although admittedly I have never actually ironed it… Nor have I washed it. It has had cream spilt on it. It has been dropped. Probably momentarily lost. Stored in the college library. Worn at countless events. But to wash it would be bad luck. According to tradition, to wash it would lessen my chance of graduating. Isn’t that convenient?
The more I have worn my gown, the more its novelty has also worn. It is a cumbersome garment. We must wear it during the meal, but afterwards everyone is keen to get rid of it, the storing of over a hundred identical gowns obviously leading to problems. Moreover, it will never ever fit. These gowns are unisex, which means they are made to be worn by male shoulders padded out by a suit. There is no hope of one ever sitting correctly on my female shoulders with nothing but a thin dress strap for assistance.
But my gown speaks so thoroughly of my time at Durham: the strange juxtaposition of tradition and new ideas. My degree has taught me about Old English while also adding in pop-culture references. My college hosts traditional formals, while existing within an odd 60s-designed hexagonal building. The students here range from slotting a little too comfortably into the private school stereotype to those that campaign against it.
Of course, Durham will always be a more traditional university. It wears its gown as a badge of honour. And for three years I have bought into that. I have stood in the Cathedral for university ceremonies. I have wandered along cobbles wandered along by students for hundreds of years. I have admired the castle, its battlements watching over the river-enclosed city. But this summer I will don a different gown, I will stand in the Cathedral again to say goodbye to this city and its funny old traditions, and then I will find something new.
But most probably I will keep my gown. Just in case.
