The graduation gown is a ceremonial dress whose history dates back at least eight hundred years. Yes, you heard that right! Eight hundred years! Back in the day when universities first began forming, they had no buildings of their own. This meant that they had to enlist the help of churches to use them as temporary classrooms. The clergymen there used to wear long robes and hoods to keep cool inside the stone walls. Thus, the dress was picked up from the clergymen and then transformed in an academic tradition. Initially, the students were expected to sport their academicals (another name for the academic dress) at all times inside the premises. Although this practice has by and large been abolished for the past two centuries, some universities still insist on following it. However, most universities only expect students to don their academicals at graduation day or at special academic processions. You may find yourself having to sport a gown yourself in you have an academic bent of mind. Even if you don’t chances are you wore one as your high school came to an end. Very few of us have been spared the touch of the academicals and fewer have lived to tell the tell.
There are two kinds of academicals; rental and keeper. Some places that have graduation caps and gowns for sale also have rental options. This option is a cheap one for those who have little use of their academicals after the convocation ceremony. After all, very few of us attend high profile universities like Oxford or Yale, where the wearing of the academic dress is a frequently occurring affair. A keeper gown, on the other hand, is one that the student is allowed to keep. The reasons for that may vary, but more often than not, it is because the student has paid for it. Of course, you may also keep it for sentimental reasons, but if the gown is rental, then there is nothing you can do about it. You can approach the rental place directly and buy it off of them, if you so choose, however. A keeper gown is given to you like you are given your graduation diplomas (packed in a nice leathery diploma covers). You can use it however you like, but chances are that you will hardly ever take it out again, except for the taking your graduation portrait. I was given a keeper gown and in all these years (too many to count, friends) I have never, not ever, taken it out. So, it might not be all that bad to have to don a rental gown, after all.
The places that have graduation caps and gowns for sale usually provide keeper gowns, but your governing body may absolutely decide against purchasing and favor renting. So, while you are entitled to your graduation diploma if you have completed the formalities, you cannot always expect to keep your gown with you. Some things cannot be argued with, so don’t even try.