Upon arriving in Cambridge this September, I was instructed to buy a gown from a shop that seemed straight out of a Harry Potter novel. Ryder and Amies sits nestled between market square and some of the oldest colleges in Cambridge, at the heart of King’s Parade. I sat down with Mark Amies – shop floor manager and descendent of the original founders – to discuss the famed store and its products, from the traditional to the trendy.

Could you introduce yourself and your shop?

I’m Mark – it’s my family shop, Ryder and Amies! We’ve been here since 1864, so it’s still in the same family. You’ve got a few of us working here at the moment: me, my cousin George, his dad Steve, and then my dad’s still in the business as well (but he comes in very, very rarely).

Are you personally involved in making the gowns?

We’ve got our own factory in Littleport, just outside of Ely. We make an awful lot of them! We also import some from China – we’ve got lots of online competitors that have cheap gowns, so we have to have a kind of a budget gown, but we do an awful lot ourselves that we make high quality. The Chinese-made ones are a kind of cheaper polyester one, and the UK-made ones are the Russell cord, wool and cotton, traditional-style gowns.

“We’ve been here since 1864, so it’s still in the same family”

Who designs the gowns? Do the colleges submit a design for you, or do you come up with them?

Typically it’s the colleges. I’m sure at some point we might have had some discussion with them… I know we had quite an input into the college scarves, but the gowns, I’m not 100% sure. Lots of the colleges are now making benefactor gowns that we have an input into.

Could you tell me a bit more about the different gowns and hoods?

Sure! For undergrads, each college will have their own separate gown. You have a few other colleges that will share a gown, traditional ladies’ gowns and men’s gowns. There’s about three or four colleges that share those gowns. Some of them are a bit more fancy than others. Some are quite plain and boring, but then that makes them cheaper…

The hoods are normally only worn for graduation. We just rent those to most people, although a surprising amount of people actually do buy them as a keepsake, even though they know they’re only going to wear them once.

“Sometimes you find wine over them…”

What’s the worst condition you’ve ever got a graduation hood back in?

Surprisingly, they all come back really, really good. I mean, sometimes you find wine over them….

Do you have a favorite gown design?

The undergraduate one would have to be Caius, because most of the others are quite boring and black. Whereas the Caius ones? It’s very different from all the others – it’s got velvet on!

And then some of the Doctorate gowns are scarlet with pink detail on, so they’re nice.

What are the origins of the college merch tradition?

I think it started with the college scarf, really, and it’s just built from there. I mean, almost every student used to buy a college scarf!

[Nowadays] it’s changed from the scarves to the puffer jacket, so our seamstresses aren’t having to make as many scarves. They’re quite happy about that! But the embroiderers are really busy at the moment with puffer jackets.

And then we’ve just got a new printing press, so we’re going to start doing more sportswear as well.

Where did the idea to do college puffer jackets come from?

I think someone might have originally ordered one from another company, and one of their friends came in and said: ‘Would we be able to do a group of them? ’ So we did!

What is the best reaction you’ve seen to a student getting their gown for the first time?

Some students get really excited. Some of them will be on a video call with a parent, if the parents are overseas, showing them. Obviously, lots of people reference Harry Potter as well!

What’s your favorite thing about working in the shop?

I really love coming up with new products for collegewear. Also, it used to just be tourists that would buy the Cambridge-wear, and students would buy college-wear. We’re starting to design much nicer stuff for the University-wear now, since students are buying a lot more of that too!