Cambridge Graduation: The Day, the Gown and Makeup That Lasts It

Graduation in Cambridge does not look like graduation anywhere else. There is no stage in a conference centre and no name read out over a microphone. There is a procession through the streets from your college, a ceremony in Latin in an eighteenth-century hall, a moment kneeling in front of the Vice-Chancellor, and then the doors open onto a lawn and a wall of cameras. It is formal, slightly strange, surprisingly moving, and long.

I do a good deal of graduation makeup, and Cambridge’s version has its own demands — an early start, a walk in the open air, a ceremony indoors and then a lawn that is dazzling, and a day that runs on into dinner. This is how the day works, and how I put together a face that holds from the first photograph in college to the last one at midnight. Whether you are the graduand, a proud parent or a partner in the guest seats, the same thinking applies.

What Actually Happens On The Day

For most undergraduates the big ceremony is General Admission, held over several days at the end of June, a week or so after the last of the May Balls. Graduate degrees are conferred at congregations spread across the year, but the shape of the day is the same.

You assemble at your college in the morning, in gown and hood, and your college Praelector, the fellow whose job it is to present you, leads the whole group in procession through the streets to the Senate House on King’s Parade. Inside, colleges are presented in order: King’s, Trinity and St John’s first, then the rest by date of foundation. When your turn comes you go up in a group of four, each holding a finger of the Praelector’s right hand, and he presents you, in Latin, as fit “as much by character as by learning” to take the degree. You kneel before the Vice-Chancellor (or a deputy), hands together, are admitted to the degree with a short formula, rise, bow, and leave through the Doctor’s door to collect your certificate. Then it is out onto Senate House lawn, where your family have been waiting, and where the photographs begin.

The photographs do not stop. On the lawn, back at college, at the garden party or lunch that most colleges put on, along the Backs if the weather is kind, and then at whatever the evening holds — a dinner with the family, drinks with friends, or both. From leaving your room to the last picture can easily be twelve hours. That, and not the ceremony, is the brief.

The Gown, The Hood And What They Do To A Face

Cambridge academic dress is black: a black gown and, for a BA, a black hood lined in white fur. Black next to the face does two things. It drains warmth from the skin, and it makes any unevenness in the base more visible, because there is nothing softer nearby for the eye to rest on. A face that looked fine in a mirror at home can look pale and slightly flat in a photograph against a gown.

So the graduation face gets a little more life than an everyday one: a touch more warmth in the blush, brought slightly higher on the cheek; a lip with real colour rather than a nude that disappears; and a base that is even from forehead to jaw, because the white of the hood’s lining sits right against the neck and will show any mismatch. Brows and lashes need to be defined enough to hold their own against all that black — not heavy, just present. If your hair is up for the hood to sit properly, the ears and hairline are more visible than usual, so the blend at the edges of the face matters more than it normally would.

For the guests (parents, partners, grandparents) the advice is the reverse. You will be in colour, in daylight, and photographed next to someone in black, so the risk is looking overdone. A polished, natural face that reads as well rather than as made up is the aim, and it is very much what a special-occasion booking for a graduation is about.

Two Lights, One Look

The Senate House is a beautiful, cool, high-windowed room, lit softly from the side. Senate House lawn, ten steps away, is an open square of bright grass surrounded by pale stone on a June morning. Your makeup has to work in both, and it has to survive the transition from one to the other several times — inside for the ceremony, outside for photographs, back inside at college for lunch, outside again on the Backs.

The rule I follow for every Cambridge graduation is the one I use for a college wedding: build for the daylight and let the indoors take care of itself. Bright light on pale stone bounces upwards and flatters the skin, but it also finds shine, so the T-zone is set carefully while the cheeks stay soft and luminous. It also washes out colour, which is why the blush and lip that looked bold enough at eight in the morning in your room are exactly right on the lawn at eleven. I would rather you thought “is this a bit much?” in the mirror and “thank goodness” in the photographs than the other way round.

And a specific word about flash. Family cameras and phones will fire flashes inside the Senate House and at the dinner in the evening. Some powders and sunscreens throw flash straight back and leave a white cast in exactly the pictures you will treasure, so I keep those products off the centre of the face and choose a sunscreen for the day that photographs cleanly. This is the same thinking I bring to black-tie and ball makeup, where the flashes come all night.

The Early Start And The Long Day

Graduation mornings start early, because the college wants you assembled in gown and hood in good time for the procession, and the day does not so much end as fade out. The base has to last, and it has to last through warmth: a June morning in a black gown, a packed hall, a walk through town, a garden party at lunch.

I build a long-wear base the same way every time. Skin prepared properly, with a primer that suits it rather than a generic one; a foundation applied thinly and built only where it is needed, because thin layers last and thick ones crack; set with powder where shine happens and left alone where it doesn’t; and a setting spray at the end that locks the whole thing without leaving it looking sprayed. Eyes get a primer and a waterproof mascara, because graduations produce more tears than people expect — usually from the parents, but not always. The lip is a stain underneath a colour, so that when the colour wears off over lunch, the stain is still there and the photographs at four o’clock still have a lip in them.

Then I hand over a small kit: powder, the lip, blotting papers. A graduation is not a wedding; you are not going to have a makeup artist following you round college. But five minutes in a mirror after lunch, with the right three things in your pocket, will carry you from the afternoon into the evening.

Getting Ready Together

A great many graduation mornings are group mornings — housemates in one set of rooms, a mother and daughter in a hotel, three friends who have shared a staircase for three years and want to share the last morning too. I like these enormously and they are easy to plan: I book a slot for each person, work through the group in an order that puts whoever needs to leave first at the front, and start early enough that nobody is watching the clock. For a larger group I bring an assistant, exactly as I would for a bridal party.

If you are getting ready in college, the practical asks are the same as for a wedding: a chair by the window, a table, a socket. College rooms in the older courts can be dark; I bring lighting. If you are in a hotel in town, the chair by the window still wins over the bathroom mirror every time.

A Look That Suits The Occasion

Most graduation faces fall into one of three families, and choosing between them is about how you like to feel when you are being looked at.

Natural and polished — skin that looks like very good skin, groomed brows, defined lashes, a fresh cheek and a lip in a warmer version of your own colour. It photographs cleanly, it never dates, and it suits people who don’t wear much day to day and don’t want to feel like someone else in the pictures.

Soft glam — the same base with a little more structure: a softly shaded eye, a stronger lash, a more deliberate cheek, a lip with intent. This is the graduation look most of my clients end up choosing, because it reads as a real occasion without tipping into evening.

A defined lip — a classic red or a deep berry against the black gown is one of the best-looking things a graduation photograph can hold, provided the rest of the face is kept quiet to balance it. It needs a lip liner and a stain underneath, and it needs you to be someone who enjoys wearing it; if you will spend the day worrying about it, it is the wrong choice, and I will say so.

Whichever you choose, the aim is the same one I have for every face I do: that you look like yourself on a very good day — which, for once, is exactly what the day is.

Should You Book A Trial?

For a wedding, always. For a graduation, usually not — the look is a step up from everyday, not a transformation, and we can settle it in the first ten minutes of the morning with a photograph or two of what you like. The exception is if you want a stronger look than you have ever worn, or if you have skin you are anxious about; then a short session a week or two before, which can double as a lesson in how to keep it topped up, takes the worry out of the day.

Anglia Ruskin And The Other Ceremonies

Not every Cambridge graduation is a Senate House one. Anglia Ruskin holds its ceremonies in the city too, with a more familiar format (gowns and caps, names read out, a stage) and the same long, photograph-heavy day around it. Everything above applies, with one addition: if you will be wearing a mortarboard rather than carrying one, the forehead and hairline are in shadow in every photograph, so I lift that area with a little more light and warmth than I otherwise would.

Planning Your Graduation Morning

Tell me the date, where you will be getting ready, what time you need to be at college, and how many of you there are, and I will come back with a plan and a start time. Graduation week in Cambridge is busy for everyone, so the earlier you ask, the more likely I can be there. Send me the details and we will make the morning the easy part of a long, lovely day.