Academic Dress - Academic Dress By Country - France

France

This article incorporates information from the equivalent article on the French Wikipedia.

In France, academic dress, also called the toge (from the word toga, an ancient Roman garment), is similar to French judges' court dress, except for its colour, which depends on the academic field in which the wearer graduated. It is nowadays little worn, except by doctors during the opening of the university year or the ceremony for a doctorate honoris causa. For doctors, it consists of:

• a long gown (a bit similar to a cassock) with a long row of buttons (traditionally, 33, but nowadays usually fewer) in front and a train at the back (which in the current costume is not visible but attached with a button in the inner side of the gown). The gown is in two colours: black and the standard colour of the academic field in which the wearer graduated (see below), with simarras (two vertical bands in the front of the gown).
• an épitoge (epitoga): a piece of cloth with white fur stripes (three for doctors) attached by a button on the left shoulder, with a rectangular, long, thin tail in the front and a triangular, shorter, broad tail in the back (both tails carry the fur stripes); its colour is that of the relevant academic field. The epitoga has evolved from the academic hood, which explains why the French academic dress does not include a hood.
• a long, wide belt or sash, either black or of the colour of the relevant academic field, ended by fringes (which may be golded or of the same colour as the belt), and attached with a broad ornamental knot.
• a white rabat (jabot), over which a white tie may be worn for ceremonial occasions. Il is made of lace for the Dean of the Faculty, the President of the University, and a few other officials; of plain cotton for others.
• only for men, a mortarboard of the colour of the relevant academic field with a golden stripe, which is usually not worn but carried (since anyway the academic dress in France is rarely worn outdoors, and men are supposed not to wear hats indoors), and often even omitted.
• in principle white bow tie and white gloves.

Professors who served 20 years are sometimes presented with a sword (identical model to that of French Police commissars).

The colours of the various academic fields are daffodil (yellow) for literature and arts, amaranth (purplish red) for science, redcurrant (reddish pink) for medicine, scarlet red for law, and violet (purple) for theology. University rectors, chancellors or presidents wear also specific costumes, which are violet regardless of the academic field in which they graduated.

The dress exists in two versions: the petit costume ("small costume") and the grand costume ("great costume"). Both are identical in form, and differ only in the presence or absence of the mortarboard and the repartition of colours on the gown and sash (the other elements of the dress, especially the epitoga, being identical for both):

• for the petit costume, the gown is all black, except the simarras which are of the colour of the academic field; the buttons are black; the sash and its fringes moiré black; the mortarboard is usually not worn;
• for the grand costume, the gown is black between the simarras, which are moiré black, and of the colour of the academic field on the sides and on the sleeves, except their turn-ups, which are black; the buttons are of the colour of the academic field; the sash is of the colour of the academic field, its fringes may be either the same colour or gold.

In formal occasions, the grand costume is equivalent to white tie, whereas the petit costume is equivalent to black tie.