In the United States, most bachelor's and master's degree candidates are often presented the "souvenir" version of regalia by their institutions or authorized vendor, which are generally intended for very few wearings and are comparatively very inexpensive.
People who choose to buy their dress may opt for finer fabrics, such as poplin, grosgrain, percale, cotton, wool, cassimere, broadcloth, Russell cord, or corded/ribbed material.
Academic regalia typically consist of a headgear (mortarboard, Tudor bonnet, or John Knox cap), robe, and hood.
The distinctive ceremonial regalia of McGill University officials, though, are closer to the American pattern for the master's robe with above-the-elbow, square, slit-cut sleeves.
[26] The graduates' dress usually consists of a simple black gown, a square academic cap, and possibly a stole in faculty colour.
After the student protests of 1968 many professors in many universities had stopped wearing academical gowns also in the formal occasions but since the 1990s people have started to use them again, mostly in humanities faculties.
Closed-front with Songket motif for university staffs Deep Red (Inanugural lecturer and honorary degree holder) Purple (Faculty of Science and Technology) Orange (Faculty of Education) Black (Faculty of Islamic Studies) Dark red (Doctorate and Faculty of Medicine Nursing) Green (Chancellor and pro-chancellor) Closed-front and elongated light blue stripes with paddy and university emblem motifs (postgraduate degrees) Dark Blue (master's degree, pro-chancellor) Black (doctorate) Yellow (chancellor) Green, Purple (pro-chancellors) Closed-front with white elongated stripes Black (chancellor) At Dutch universities, academic dress does not come with a degree but with the incumbency of a professorial chair: only full, chaired professors wear the toga with bib and beret.
The beret is usually a soft cap, square or round and made of velvet; the gown (ankle-length, open in the front), is made of wool trimmed with velvet or silk It is traditionally black, as in the robes of early-modern humanists; some universities have gowns with wide slashed sleeves edged in faculty-specific colours, others have a decorated sleeve but without specific faculty colours.
Academic dress is only worn on ceremonial occasions: the university anniversary or dies natalis, inaugural lectures, and the public defence of a doctoral thesis.
Male professors remove their beret when sitting down and put it on when standing up (e.g. to lecture or to address a doctoral candidate during the thesis defence).
Academic dress may be completed by a chain of office (for the presiding Rector or Dean) or the insignia of honorary doctorates or royal orders (only worn at the dies natalis).
A Doctoral hood is completely silk and the headdress is a black Tudor bonnet, in place of the flat-topped mortarboard worn with bachelor's and master's gowns.
For other graduates, the academic dress is often composed by a mortarboard and a mozzetta (muceta) or a sash over the shoulder (beca) with the shield of the university and/or faculty.
In the Ingmar Bergman film Wild Strawberries, one scene shows the conferral of a Jubilee doctor degree on the main character at the University of Lund, which includes the presentation of such a hat and ring.
Thammasat University employs a plain black gown with different epitoge, a strip of cloth worn over the left shoulder, for distinct degrees.
In early medieval times, all students at the universities were in at least minor orders, and were required to wear the cappa or other clerical dress, and restricted to clothes of black or other dark colour.
[76] Undergraduates at St Andrews, with the exception of theology students, commonly wear scarlet woollen gowns with velvet collars.
Only Oxford, Cambridge, Durham and Newcastle use habits and mainly reserve their use for very formal ceremonial occasions and to a specific group of academics or officials.
The Chancellor and the Vice-Chancellor may wear a black damask lay type gown (sometimes with a long train) trimmed with gold or silver lace and frogs.
There is an Inter-Collegiate code which sets out a detailed uniform scheme of academic regalia followed by most, though some institutions do not adhere to it entirely, and fewer still ignore it.
Generally, academic regalia in the United States consists of a mortarboard cap affixed with a tassel, and gown worn over other clothing.
[87] In some rare instances the practice has persisted, such as at Sewanee, where members of the student honor society, along with most professors, continue to wear the gown to class.
In 1893, an Intercollegiate Commission made up of representatives from leading institutions and chaired by President of Columbia Seth Low was created, to establish an acceptable system of academic dress.
The commission met at Columbia University in 1895 and adopted a code of academic regalia, which prescribed the cut and style and materials of the gowns, as well as determined the colors which were to represent the different fields of learning.
The Code calls for the gown trim to be either black or the colour designated for the field of study in which the doctorate was earned (see Inter-Collegiate colors).
[95] In most American colleges and universities, the colour of the velvet hood trimming is distinctive of the academic field – or as closely related as possible – to which the degree earned pertains (see Inter-Collegiate colors).
There is at some colleges and universities a practice of moving the tassel from one side to the other on graduating, but this is a modern innovation that would be impractical out of doors due to the vagaries of the wind.
[94] Some of the more common colours seen are that liberal arts is represented by white, science by golden yellow, medicine by green, law by purple, theology by scarlet, and philosophy (including all PhD degrees) by dark blue.
136, § 2), b) et biretum doctorale, (idest: cum quatuor apicibus) utpote insigne huius gradus ac diverso colore ornatum pro Facultate.
1378...doctors or an academic diegree in one of the four above-mentioned faculties <