Check your college or university's policy on dress code for the clothing you will wear underneath the gown. Some schools will stipulate that you wear a specific type of shoe or a certain color of pants or clothing, so you should understand these requirements before you dress in your gown and hood. Remember to wear lightweight, breathable fabrics for your graduation clothing because you may get hot under your gown.
Put on the gown as you would wear an overcoat or a bathrobe. Some gowns are open in the front, others have a zipper. The gown should have sleeves that come down to your wrists, and the bottom hem of the gown should be midcalf length. For a doctoral gown, the sleeves will be bell-shaped with fitted wrists; graduate-level gowns have long fabric tails coming down off the wrist.
Drape the hood around your neck with the long end of the hood behind you. Sometimes the hood will have a small looped cord in the front portion; you can use this cord to pin the hood to your dress or to loop around the button on your shirt or blouse so the hood will not fall down your back as you wear it.
In the back of your gown, the hood should lie flat. The color of the velvet part of the hood corresponds to the degree you have earned; for instance, education is light blue and music is pink. The inner, satin colors of the hood correspond to the university where you earned your degree. The hood should be positioned with the velvet on the outside and the satin on the inside. Sometimes the hood will have a small loop to wrap from velvet side to velvet side behind the loop, other times it will simply lie flat on its own in the right position.