Let’s Get Fancy

Though the the rigorous, in-depth tutorials and endless rows of anciently beautiful libraries sure are enticing to us nerds, what has become one of my favorite things about being here at Oxford has, in fact, nothing to do with school (as fun as school is)… It’s the parties; the fancy dinners; the numerous opportunities (at the very least, every Wednesday and Friday night at Mansfield!) to ditch those flats for some heels and show just how seamlessly you can transition from everyday to evening wear (something the Brits seem to have perfected)…

Ok, so the transition is usually not so graceful, at least in my experience. Instead, over the past few weeks it’s looked more like this: it starts with a string of texts between me and my friends asking each other questions like “what are you wearing?” “Would ___ be too nice?” “Would ___ be too casual?” “What exactly is the dress code for tonight?” “What the heck do these Brits mean by ‘smart?!'” We then proceed to run between one another’s rooms, switching outfits, sharing sweaters, and applying bandaids to our many blisters (which, unfortunately, have become a sort of regular occurrence – our poor feet aren’t used to wearing dress shoes this many nights a week). 30 minutes to one hour later we are outside in the quad, leaving Dale (the building where us and the rest of the visiting students live) 15 minutes later than we had planned. This has become our routine – and I absolutely love it.

In high school you’ve got opportunities to get dressed up nice and strut your stuff multiple times a year: homecoming, winter formal, prom… Then all of a sudden you’re shipped off to college, where there’s almost never an opportunity to dress up (minus those who are actively involved in “fancier” things like the student government, etc.). Here in England, on the other hand, formal events have always been tradition – and Oxford is BIG on tradition. So I figured I’d give you a quick introduction to one of the many age-old Oxford rituals, which we were introduced to during the first week of term: formal hall.

Every Wednesday and Friday night at Mansfield, formal hall is held in the Chapel Hall (our chapel-turned-dining room). Wednesdays are smart casual, while Fridays are black tie. Tickets have to be purchased ahead of time, but bottles of wine can be bought the night of in the college’s café. For these dinners, the catering staff brings out the big guns: candles, three courses, and a whole lot of expensive napkins. Mansfield’s President, Baroness Helena Kennedy (look her up – she’s in the House of Lords a.k.a. she’s kind of a big deal in the British Parliament), enjoys her dinner at the high table with other important looking people (probably tutors, along with whoever was the speaker for that Friday’s lecture). The rest of us sit at the crowded long tables, sipping wine, munching on delicious food, and enjoying one another’s company before it’s time to head back to the library (or the night club if you’re feeling ambitious/don’t want to do homework). And we do this all in our hilarious, interesting (kind of hideous) black robes, because someone, somewhere, a few hundred (I’m totally guessing here) years ago, had the thought: this fancy dinner would be so much cooler if we wore these really fantastic robes! And so it became tradition; and like I said, tradition is big here. And I love it.

Cheers,

HRH

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New Words of the Week

1. smart adj. – used to describe someone as looking “sharp” or well-dressed; can also be used to describe a dress code for an event, i.e. “The dress for tonight will be smart casual”

2. knackered adj. (slang) – extremely tired, exhausted; worn out or damaged by overuse, i.e. “How late were you up last night? You look absolutely knackered.”

3. rubbish n. – what Americans would call “trash” or “garbage”; someone can also be accused of “talking rubbish”

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