If you’ve ever been to a formal at another college, or brought a guest with you to one at yours, you’re likely to have noticed that the gowns worn by your extra-collegiate friends don’t look the same. Unlike over at The Other Place (yes, I’m talking about Oxford), the style of academic dress worn by Cambridge undergrads doesn’t depend on whether or not you’re a scholar; instead, each college chooses its own specific style of gown. Most are plain black, with distinctive sleeves; Trinity, Caius and Selwyn’s gowns all feature varying levels of blue, while Churchill and King’s tend not to wear gowns at all. Nowadays, these differences are fairly unimportant, with gowns only really worn at matriculation, to formal dinners, or when (God forbid) getting Deaned. Until relatively recently though, they played a much more significant role in student life, and forgetting yours in a rush meant a whole lot more than feeling slightly underdressed in hall…

“Slowly but surely, other colleges began to modify their undergraduate gowns to make them distinctive from each other”

Early Cambridge academic dress looked very similar to religious dress, featuring a hood and a garment resembling a cassock, which reflected the religious foundations of the University and its earliest colleges. In the late 1300s, scholars at King’s Hall (a college that now survives in the form of just one building in Trinity) began wearing an ankle-length gown similar to the ones worn at Oxford, known as the roba talaris; in the sixteenth-century, this would begin to evolve into the standard gowns familiar to most students, made of black fabric, with wide, bell-shaped sleeves. This standard was immediately broken when Trinity was founded in 1546, with the college statutes specifying that gowns should be blue (though I’d argue they were closer to purple). 11 years later, Gonville Hall was refounded as Gonville and Caius, and also adopted blue gowns. Sorry, Caius. Trinity beat you to it.

Caius and Trinity continued to be their quirky selves, colleges that revelled in being different from all the rest, until the 1800s, when slowly but surely, other colleges began to modify their undergraduate gowns to make them distinctive from each other. Even though historically, noblemen had been allowed to wear gowns in whatever colours they wanted (including red, green and pink), most undergraduates wore black gowns. Many colleges began introducing variations into the designs of these gowns, which still exist to this day. Students at St John’s started wearing gowns with velvet stripes on the sleeves, while Clare gowns began featuring velvet chevrons, and those at Pembroke wore gowns gathered at the sleeve. You might have noticed that not all college gowns are different – for example, the gowns at our women-only colleges look pretty identical, with long, closed sleeves: a design supposedly chosen to cover any bare arms that short-sleeved dresses left exposed.

“Considering how often I’ve seen students donning the gown on a Voi to and from formals, I’m not sure what to believe”

Nowadays, the distinctions between various gowns don’t mean all that much – gone are the days where you could assess whether someone was of noble birth, based purely on what they were wearing – but the wearing of academic dress has always been (and continues to be) an important aspect of Cambridge culture. In fact, we might be lucky that they’re no longer such a big deal. For much of Cambridge’s history, undergrads had to wear their gowns pretty much everywhere – to lectures, to supervisions, and even just when walking around town after dark – or be fined. This rule was allegedly abolished around 1965, when it was decided that gown-wearing students were ‘too obviously’ members of the University, and therefore ‘too obviously’ targets for assault. I’ve also heard it rumoured that the requirement was dropped due to a surge in gown-related bicycle accidents, but considering how often I’ve seen students donning the gown on a Voi to and from formals, I’m not sure what to believe.

Even if at times I find the blue Trinity gowns sort of annoying – it’s so much harder to match a dress to blue than black – I also think that every college having a unique gown actually plays an important role in creating a sense of community. Wearing a gown is a bit of a novelty, it’s one of those ‘very Cambridgey’ things that makes you feel part of the university, from the moment you first arrive. Putting one on for the first time at matriculation marks you becoming an official part of your college, and embarking on a degree you worked so hard to get into. I also think there’s something nice about attending formal at a different college and spotting, across a crowded hall, someone wearing the same gown as you. The point of every college having its own gown isn’t to arbitrarily divide students from each other then. Instead, I think they’re an important aspect of the University’s history, and a reminder of the unique position every college has within it, as well as the places we each have within our colleges.