Sunday dress, hose and dressy shoes. And a full complement of undies.
A simple dress and sandals, and for PhD an aloha shirt, capri pants, and tevas (seriously, all that shows is the bottom 5 inches of leg, and I didn’t have concerned parents or anything there; on a girl a 400 dollar skirt suit and 30 dollar short pants look exactly the same under robes).
I think your after-ceremony activity should dictate what you wear underneath. If your folks are taking you out to a schnazzy joint, dress for that. If you’re going to a kegger, dress for that.
Back in the day (high school graduation) a girl wore jeans under her gown. It was just un-fucking-heard of at that time). She was forever labeled a rebel.
In high school I wore a suit and tie. I didn’t bother to go to my college graduation.
I graduated last year, and I wore grey pants, a shirt of some sort, and comfortable black shoes. I’m female, but I don’t own a dress and didn’t feel like buying one. I don’t think my pants-wearing scandalized anyone too badly, and if it did, I don’t care.
My college graduation ceremony was held during a raging blizzard. I wore dress pants, a sweater, and dressy boots (not snow boots, although it would have been smart).
My brother wore his kilt with full kit under his robe in HS, and of course went regimental underneath. He looked awesome but it was hot.
Keep in mind that the robe WILL gap or blow open at some point, and your grandma might not want to see you naked… just sayin’…
If I’m not mistaken, robes worn in many commonwealth countries are quite a bit more… revealing of what the wearer has on underneath than those normally worn in the United States. (For example, this versus this.) Here, no one would be able to tell, for example, if you had a jacket on under your robe; as a result, even someone who’s “dressing up” will skip that element (IME).
For my PhD graduation I wore a dress shirt, tie, black slacks, and black dress shoes. The very tops of the shirt and tie were visible until I got my hood during the ceremony, at which point they became invisible, too.
You think your brother in a kilt is hot?
IT was hot! IT! IT! As in, out-fucking-side!
Charcoal grey suit, white shirt, school color tie. Hey, it was 20 years ago week before last.
I shoulda worn a tweed coat. I remember it was hella cold out on those bleachers.
Jr. High - Brown corduroy suit.
High School - Dark blue suit
BS Engineering - Ripped up 501s, tie dye t-shirt
MS Engineering - Same as BS Engineering
When I graduated from high school in 1966, the guys were required to wear black shoes and socks, black slacks, white shirt and black tie.
Except that my tie was one my brother had given me. All you could see with the gown on was the knot. When I took the gown off, the tie was revealed. It spread out about three inches below the knot and on the wide area was painted a very naked, buxom young lady.
I wish I still had that tie.
And if you’re very lucky, the stupid hat will make itself look even worse by popping off your head at inopportune moments. My graduation ceremony was today and I ended up with a head full of bobby pins to keep my cap from making its merry way off my head 2.5 seconds before I crossed the stage. Other people did not think ahead so well.
And I wore a navy dress and a pair of black flats. My university didn’t have any particular dress code either. They said that, ideally, we should wear dressy dark clothes and shoes (and avoid high heels because of the floor covering – we were in our sports arena and the floor cover was wrinkled in places that could catch heels), but mostly just to at least wear something underneath, please.
For high school we didn’t have gowns so I wore the required white, full-length dress.
For undergrad I wore a causal skirt, tank-top and high-heeled loafers which were very stylish at the time. Most of the other women in my class wore something similar - sundress, skirt and T-shirt, and heels type thing. I don’t recall anyone wearing something “dressy”.
You have to buy your own gown? My previous university, and my husband’s, just handed them out the day of the ceremony and we returned them before leaving. So we just wore something reasonably presentable (a nice skirt and top for me and a suit for him).
Kalhoun, I am likely to be going to a party with kegs after, but not one with all the debauchery that “kegger” implies for me. I should ask my parents if they wanted to go to dinner after: this being a pretty casual town with even the nice wine bar fairly loose in its dress codes, I could find an outfit formal enough to wear out to dinner that wouldn’t look out of place at a theatre graduation party.
mnemosyne, yes, we had to buy our own gowns- I had to do it in high school as well. Both gowns are nearly shapeless polyester sacks that zip up the front supplied by Jostens.
I didn’t go to college graduation. For high school and law school, I wore a suit underneath. For law school they provided the gowns ahead of time so they could be ironed and what not. The morning of, I had a law school prep class so I wore the suit and carried the gown on a hanger. It was about 98 degrees that day.
Immediately after the ceremony (indoors, thank God) we had to return our gowns and caps, so commando was not an option. But even if it was, your legs and feet are still visible so what was I supposed to- bare hairy legs and sandals or something? That would look terrible. Girls can get away with that much more easily than guys can, but that applies to everyday wear too, I guess.
Long black skirt, nude stockings (I normally ecshew them, but this was in a coliseum which also had hockey games so we were sitting on wood boards over ice), white blouse and flat dress shoes.
Red Chuck Taylor All-Stars. With red laces.