Ah, yes, it's graduation season, and there's a line of people standing to have their glam photos taken in front of Tommy Trojan. This young woman has probably three or four in front of her: there's a male photographer on the steps of TT sprawled at an extravagantly low angle so as to get Unusual Shots. It's hard to think what kind of angle would turn the World's Most Uncomfortable Looking Shoes into something sartorially flattering.
But ok - what is it with American white graduation dresses, as though getting one's degree is like taking one's first communion or getting married? Apparently, it symbolizes (well, duh) purity, which I'm sure isn't entirely appropriate for a large number of grads, and a blank slate (that makes more sense), and stands out well against graduation gowns and sashes (well, yes). The best answer seems to be tradition, however ... and it goes back a long way. Some people have tried to weave suffragettes into the history, but not very convincingly.
But in the UK... I didn't, of course, go to my undergraduate graduation: that just wasn't a cool thing to do, back in the day. But I did go to my DPhil one: I'm sure I wore a flowery dress in some kind of Liberty cotton because that would have been Suitable for the Occasion. Honestly, if I'd worn white I'd have looked like a very badly dressed Hallowe'en ghoul, or an extra in a production of Julius Caesar.
I see that the hyper fem style continues to be popular among the USC undergrad population. Some things never change!
ReplyDeleteThey do NOT. And what of course I didn't think was very kind to write is that ... one would have thought that *even* if the participants might opt to follow this Wearing White convention, they could, er, surely have made slightly more flattering choices?
ReplyDelete