ACADEMIC COSTUME • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Academic costume

... Pere Langlois, Professor of Rhetoric in that institution; a kind and benevolent-minded man, as it would seem, to whom his pupil remained attached throughout his whole life, and who, unchanged and unchangeable, wore, in 1828, the academic costume which had prevailed before the Revolution—a long-skirted, collarless black coat, buttoned to the chin; black knee breeches and silk stockings; large shoes with silver-plated buckles; well powdered hair, with ailes de pigeon and a queue of portentous dimensions; and that indispensable companion ...

— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various