Gentlemen,
I was delighted to find out last week that I was admitted for postgraduate study at Jesus College, Cambridge. I have been reading all I can about the College and the University. Is there something like a Brideshead Revisited set in Cambridge -- a work of fiction that epitomises the ambiance of the University? I understand Cambridge is a much smaller and calmer town than Oxford.
I have a few sartorial questions for this forum. Firstly, I understand that owning a dinner suit is de rigueur, however I cannot ascertain whether it is a dinner suit or a lounge suit that is to be worn under the gown for Formal Hall. And the gown -- what is the ideal material? I see that Ryder & Amies sells ex-hire Cotton-Poly gowns but I hope we can do a little better than that. Should I visit Ede & Ravenscroft? Finally, what about white tie? Is it necessary? There are a number of vintage shops where I live with a large number of inexpensive vintage tailcoats, but they are invariably sold without trousers. Are dinner trousers the same as white tie trousers? Will I look an ass with trousers that do not precisely match the tailcoat?
Coming to the Elegant Living -- I am given to understand that smoking is not permitted even outdoors on College grounds except in a shed behind some electric machinery. Will I be left alone smoking a cigar on a bench or under a tree, or is this ban enforced? I do not know how I shall get any work done if I cannot smoke.
Many thanks for your help and I welcome any advice or recommendations.
Studying at Cambridge
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rogiercreemers
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Get a gown from E&R, the whipcord one, not the poly one. Get a dinner suit, and two dark grey suits. Gown rules depend on college. White tie is nearly dead, depending on which May balls you wish to attend. The rest of the time, your classmates will be wearing college jumpers, jeans and sports outfits. I'm afraid Brideshead is a very bad guide to sartorial behaviour in contemporary Cambridge.
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DD MacDonald
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JWH - congratulations on your admission to Cambridge and Jesus! I was there from '89-93 as a post-grad.
i do not really think that things have changed too much so my advice may help. A dinner jacket is not really needed unless you are involved in a few of the societies. A few of the Mayballs (in June of course, welcome to Cambridge) are white tie for which a dinner jacket won't cut it. I'd wait and find and see before I bought formal rig.
But do not dismay, you still have a lot of retail therapy options. Jesus's colors are scarlet and black which means get a mid to dark gray suit. In my mind, extra points for woven flannel but good whipcord or heavy worsted flannel work really well. Just no stripes or plaids. Not that you won't see them, its more that they are less versatile in the setting. As I remember there is a graduate formal hall every Wednesday, the formal meaning that you wear a gown to dinner. Most wore a tie but not always, very few (if ever) wore sub-fusc or anything really formal.
Here are some guides to formal dress at Cambridge:
wiki guide to academic dress (good flowchart): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cambr ... _chart.svg
CU official policy: http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/students/stu ... dress.html
At the start of term you can buy old robes from the Student Union or whatever they call it, I'm not sure that i ever even had a robe but it was always pretty easy to borrow one / find one. Still, I'd follow the advice directly adjacent to this and buy a robe from E&R or AE Clothier. You can sort that out when you get there.
As to ties, Ben Silver down in Charleston probably has the best silk for a Jesus tie that I've seen but the Cambridge shops may now carry better ones.
From a wardrobe perspective, a sober tweed jacket or two, some gray whipcords, a suit as above and some heavy cords should see you through most everything. I only say sober on the tweeds because you'll want them to be very wearable in a wardrobe sort of was as opposed to an outfit sort of way.
As to cigars, there are lots of grounds and many shady trees by the river. I'm sure if you offer the right porter a cigar one afternoon, you'll be forever insulated from recrimination. Buy a suit before you go and take a tweed that you have, you can find everything else england-side.
Enjoy your time,
DDM
i do not really think that things have changed too much so my advice may help. A dinner jacket is not really needed unless you are involved in a few of the societies. A few of the Mayballs (in June of course, welcome to Cambridge) are white tie for which a dinner jacket won't cut it. I'd wait and find and see before I bought formal rig.
But do not dismay, you still have a lot of retail therapy options. Jesus's colors are scarlet and black which means get a mid to dark gray suit. In my mind, extra points for woven flannel but good whipcord or heavy worsted flannel work really well. Just no stripes or plaids. Not that you won't see them, its more that they are less versatile in the setting. As I remember there is a graduate formal hall every Wednesday, the formal meaning that you wear a gown to dinner. Most wore a tie but not always, very few (if ever) wore sub-fusc or anything really formal.
Here are some guides to formal dress at Cambridge:
wiki guide to academic dress (good flowchart): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cambr ... _chart.svg
CU official policy: http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/students/stu ... dress.html
At the start of term you can buy old robes from the Student Union or whatever they call it, I'm not sure that i ever even had a robe but it was always pretty easy to borrow one / find one. Still, I'd follow the advice directly adjacent to this and buy a robe from E&R or AE Clothier. You can sort that out when you get there.
As to ties, Ben Silver down in Charleston probably has the best silk for a Jesus tie that I've seen but the Cambridge shops may now carry better ones.
From a wardrobe perspective, a sober tweed jacket or two, some gray whipcords, a suit as above and some heavy cords should see you through most everything. I only say sober on the tweeds because you'll want them to be very wearable in a wardrobe sort of was as opposed to an outfit sort of way.
As to cigars, there are lots of grounds and many shady trees by the river. I'm sure if you offer the right porter a cigar one afternoon, you'll be forever insulated from recrimination. Buy a suit before you go and take a tweed that you have, you can find everything else england-side.
Enjoy your time,
DDM
Don't they also require a black suit for matriculation and similar ceremonies? Or does Oxford grey (heh, heh) stand in on those occasions?
JWH,There are a number of vintage shops where I live with a large number of inexpensive vintage tailcoats, but they are invariably sold without trousers. Are dinner trousers the same as white tie trousers?
dinner trousers , unlike white tie trousers that have two coupled silk stripes on their external sides (black or midnight blue depending on the colour of the suit fabric), have only one silk stripe.
My congratulations for your admission to Cambridge and Jesus.
Angelo
I think the clear counterpart to Brideshead Revisited at the Other Place is Chariots of Fire, although the filming had to take place at Eton because the University was afraid of it giving them a bad image. The film still gives a great impression of the interwar ethos there, though.
Formal halls are generally jacket and tie required, so a DJ is definitely over-kill (and would look out of place). Even if less than that is permitted in some colleges I recommend sticking to at least a jacket and tie, just as a matter of personal dignity (and so you yourself aren't contributing to the general slide in elegance). Special dinners will be black tie, at Oxford in 2010 black tie occasions came up every month or two. When I visited Cambridge I found it to be less formal than its older sibling, but that doesn't surprise me too much, since there are more modern colleges at Cambridge than at Oxford. There are white tie commem balls at Oxford at the end of every year, but I think only one or two may balls are left that are still white tie. (No one will notice if you use the same trousers as for black tie.) In either case, though, your opportunities for wearing a tailcoat will generally be somewhere between 0 and 1 times per year.
From what I hear (from afar) the colleges with the most traditional ethos are Peterhouse and Caius, but I imagine Jesus is right there in the conversation. As a grad student, trading dinner invitations with others in your course is a great way to socialise, and explore the colleges. There will be dandies about of all shades on the spectrum, but the jean-wearing crowd will still have them outnumbered. But the fun of being in university is that you can find your own crowd to hang out with.
(Also, if you join the O&C later, you'll have plenty of future occasions to keep wearing that dinner jacket!)
Formal halls are generally jacket and tie required, so a DJ is definitely over-kill (and would look out of place). Even if less than that is permitted in some colleges I recommend sticking to at least a jacket and tie, just as a matter of personal dignity (and so you yourself aren't contributing to the general slide in elegance). Special dinners will be black tie, at Oxford in 2010 black tie occasions came up every month or two. When I visited Cambridge I found it to be less formal than its older sibling, but that doesn't surprise me too much, since there are more modern colleges at Cambridge than at Oxford. There are white tie commem balls at Oxford at the end of every year, but I think only one or two may balls are left that are still white tie. (No one will notice if you use the same trousers as for black tie.) In either case, though, your opportunities for wearing a tailcoat will generally be somewhere between 0 and 1 times per year.
From what I hear (from afar) the colleges with the most traditional ethos are Peterhouse and Caius, but I imagine Jesus is right there in the conversation. As a grad student, trading dinner invitations with others in your course is a great way to socialise, and explore the colleges. There will be dandies about of all shades on the spectrum, but the jean-wearing crowd will still have them outnumbered. But the fun of being in university is that you can find your own crowd to hang out with.
(Also, if you join the O&C later, you'll have plenty of future occasions to keep wearing that dinner jacket!)
There's plenty of opportunities to wear a suit and tie in Cambridge, I'd suggest focusing your efforts here. A dinner jacket should definitely be on your shopping list, especially if you plan on being more actively involved in student life (e.g. annual dinners of many student societies will be black tie, as are the May Balls, by and large). Also useful is a blazer for less formal drinks, and especially if you're a sportsman.
Other than that, can I highly recommend The Nightclimbers of Cambridge by Whipplesnaith as a wonderful historic, and highly amusing, account of (an alternative view of) student life, the university, and its buildings. Particularly interesting (because attitudes haven't changed so much in the ~75 years since its publication) is the warning from the University Proctors contained within its pages. It'll change your perspective of the city
Other than that, can I highly recommend The Nightclimbers of Cambridge by Whipplesnaith as a wonderful historic, and highly amusing, account of (an alternative view of) student life, the university, and its buildings. Particularly interesting (because attitudes haven't changed so much in the ~75 years since its publication) is the warning from the University Proctors contained within its pages. It'll change your perspective of the city
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