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Age-old Question

Where best to buy your gown

+

Cost aside, the best quality

I'm sure many soon-to-be-freshers are sweating about this right now! :rolleyes:

Reply 1

H&E

3

OUSU do a deal which'll be sent to you with your freshers' pack. £35, then you just pick it up when you get to Oxford.

I don't think the word 'quality' really applies to gown, btw. They're just too weird and horrible and black for quality of fabric etc to make any difference. And you'll use them too infrequently to worry about wear and tear.

Reply 2

KuinKra

1

I advise against getting the gowns in the pack. They look as if they've given a particularly untalented five year old some felt, cardboard, cotton and pritt-stick and left him to his own devices.

Go to ede and ravenscroft. For the limited time you do wear your gown, you want to look your best. And it's only about a tenner more.

And you will wear it a lot if you're always formalling :smile:

Reply 3

Narcissus

OP

yeah should have said: options are the OUSU (cheapest? Undercutting the two 'household' names), Ede and Ravenscroft, and Shepherd and Woodward.

Reply 4

El Stevo

11

we need to get a gown before we go?

Reply 5

KuinKra

1

No. The latest you can wait is matriculation. You *need* one for then, otherwise you can't matriculate.

But if I were you, I'd get it asap.

Reply 6

H&E

3

Why? They're just about the most useless pieces of kit in the world outside Oxford. If I were a fresher again, I probably wouldn't buy one at all, but wait till I came up, find someone who got a distinction in their first year exams and buy/borrow theirs for matriculation. As scholars, they'll get fancy scholar's gowns and won't need their commoner's one.

Reply 7

Sinuhe

8

My college sent me four different 'special offers' from different shops in Oxford, though three of them seem to be from the same vendor. There's no cutoff date given for these offers so I suppose there's no need to order gowns and caps in advance, is there?

Incidentally, I'm a bit curious about the remainder of the academic dress. The subfusc is normally described simply as a dark suit &c, and a plain white shirt and white collar. But what do these last two mean? Does the collar have to come separately from the shirt? And what sort of collar do they mean? Does it have to be a bow-tie style collar (the one with little 'triangles' pointing out; I think it's called a 'wing collar')?
I'm having such problems finding a suitable shirt over here. I'm told white shirts are common in England; but they certainly aren't here (in fact shop assistants told me that the only appropriate place to wear a white shirt is Sunday mass in the countryside). The 'standard' formal wear colour here is light blue, but fashionable is generally considered more important than traditional, so even that is rare. Similarly bow-ties have 'fallen out of fashion' and wing collar shirts are almost impossible to come by, much less in white.
The only place out of numerous shops I've been to which has plain white wing-collared shirts is a (hideously expensive) Hugo Boss outlet, but even they said they're not sure if they can get my size.
So could someone please tell me what sort of shirt they expect? Thanks. :biggrin:

Reply 8

H&E

3

You can wear a normal shirt with a colour 'built in' as it were. No need for a wing collar - I think maybe 10% max of people have these. You don't need to bring a bow tie with you either - you can get them in Oxford for about £4.

Reply 9

Sinuhe

8

Thanks.

Reply 10

Narcissus

OP

Perhaps an Oxford Fashion thread should be made :biggrin:

From bowties to lycra all-in-ones!

Reply 11

KuinKra

1

Narcissus

lycra all-in-ones!

Sexy. :wtf?:

Reply 12

designer

K'uin K'ra

Go to ede and ravenscroft. For the limited time you do wear your gown, you want to look your best.

Is there really that much difference in quality?

Reply 13

hurricanehair

I can't believe I'm going to have to wear that...but seriously which ones do people recommend?

Reply 14

H&E

3

I've been to formals with K'uin K'ra and I can't said I noticed the quality of his gown. In fact, I've been to formals with lots of different people from lots of different colleges and never even noticed there were different qualities!

Reply 15

KuinKra

1

H&E

I've been to formals with K'uin K'ra and I can't said I noticed the quality of his gown. In fact, I've been to formals with lots of different people from lots of different colleges and never even noticed there were different qualities!

To be fair, I doubt you were doing a gown review. I've had a chance to look at ones from the OUSU offer and ones from ede and ravenscroft and there is an obvious difference in quality. True, if you're not gonna wear it often I doubt it'll be worth it. I certainly think the difference is worth a tenner.

And there is a blatantly obvious difference in quality of mortar boards. The ones from OUSU are just ugly. Looks like someone's sellotaped a black tube to a black square and dangled some black string from it.

Reply 16

scatterbrain

1

How about girls? I can't find a nice plain black skirt anywhere that isn't asymetric, ridiculously short or one of those gypsy things. I've even looked at the back to school stuff :redface:

I've got some black trousers though, do many girls wear them? (The list says 'dark', thats black, yeah?)

Reply 17

KuinKra

1

scatterbrain

How about girls? I can't find a nice plain black skirt anywhere that isn't asymetric, ridiculously short or one of those gypsy things. I've even looked at the back to school stuff :redface:

I've got some black trousers though, do many girls wear them? (The list says 'dark', thats black, yeah?)

Hm... most girls I've seen in sub-fusc seem to prefer trousers, and everyone I've seen seems to wear black.

To be honest, wearing anything other than black just looks weird.

Reply 18

fleur-de-lis

1

scatterbrain

How about girls? I can't find a nice plain black skirt anywhere that isn't asymetric, ridiculously short or one of those gypsy things. I've even looked at the back to school stuff :redface:

I've got some black trousers though, do many girls wear them? (The list says 'dark', thats black, yeah?)

If you prefer skirts, you can wear one of those formal skirts normally worn by corporate women. I wear trousers- the only times when it will be a problem is during summer when you write your exams.

Reply 19

fleur-de-lis

1

H&E

I've been to formals with K'uin K'ra and I can't said I noticed the quality of his gown. In fact, I've been to formals with lots of different people from lots of different colleges and never even noticed there were different qualities!

I have noticed the difference in material though. I seem to remember that cotton ones were cheaper :confused:

The advantage of non-cotton ones is that you don't have to iron it :biggrin:

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