Frequently Asked Questions

All of our hired items are delivered to you in advance of your ceremony. At checkout you will be asked to select your ceremony date and delivery address (if you aren't attending a ceremony just choose the date you want to hire the items for). All your items will arrive at your chosen delivery address at least two days before your ceremony date. You can then arrive at your ceremony with your gown already in hand and skip the gown queues on the day. After the ceremony, you have until two working days after your hire date to send the items back to us using the resealable bag and prepaid return label we provide. This means you get to keep your hired items for a minimum of five days, plenty of time to celebrate and take lots of photos!

Yes, our gowns and mortarboards are authentic academic dress, conforming to the official style as used by the universities in the UK. We work hard to ensure that our items match those of other suppliers, so that our graduates are indistinguishable from everyone else. We have had thousands of customers from universities across the UK attend ceremonies in our regalia with no issues of conformity which is why we are the top rated gown supplier on Trustpilot, with a 4.7 star rating based on 1900+ reviews!

Yes! All of our gowns are home delivered so you don't need to be attending a ceremony in person to get one. We have plenty of customers who want to hire a gown to celebrate at home with their family and friends, or who want to hire the gown for extra graduation photos after their graduation day. You will be asked to enter a 'ceremony date' at checkout so just put the date of your planned celebration and the gown will be delivered to your home two days before.

We regularly post our gowns out to hotels, just put the address of the hotel as the shipping address and make sure the name on the order is also the name on the hotel booking. The hotel should then associate the package with your room booking and hand it to you on arrival. Another option would be for you to have your gown delivered to a friend who is based in the UK and attending the same ceremony - plus if you both order from us you'll save on postage too!

All our orders are sent out via tracked postage so you will be able to check in advance that your gown has arrived safely.

How long can I keep my rental gown for?

If your rented gown has not arrived 2 days before your ceremony date please contact us before 12 noon. We can then dispatch a replacement on a next day service to ensure you have a gown in time for your ceremony.

We post all our garments from our warehouse in the UK using Royal Mail tracked services. Once your order leaves the warehouse you will be emailed the tracking number so you can keep an eye on its progress. In the very unlikely event that your order is delayed, we will be more than happy to send out a spare or replacement to ensure you are not left without a gown on graduation day. If your order is especially urgent we also provide an 'express' service which means your items will be with you in 1-2 business days via a tracked delivery. We recommend choosing express postage for any ceremony date that is less than one week away.

We currently only supply hoods to certain universities and for certain qualifications, so we may not yet have your specific hood in stock. We are, however, constantly broadening our range so you might like to check back a bit later. It may be possible for you to save money by buying our gowns and mortarboards, and renting or purchasing the hood from another supplier. This way you can still save money and you get a fantastic memento which you can keep forever.

If you are looking to purchase a hood we do not stock, we also work with a seamstress who offers a made to order service. Please email sales.uk@churchillgowns.com with your requirements, if this would be of interest.

As long as you follow our sizing guide, you will have no trouble with fittings. These are academic robes and therefore are inherently loose fitting. More like a dressing gown or cape! We do however provide free exchanges if you wish to swap your size, you will just need to cover the cost of shipping a replacement.

According to consumer rights legislation and practice, your cooling-off period is the period of time following your purchase when you, as purchaser, may choose to cancel a purchase, and return goods which have been supplied, for any reason, and obtain a full refund. Purchased products may be returned to us unopened for a refund (minus postage) within 14 days of delivery. Once the package has been opened only the difference between the purchase and hire price can be refunded if you wish to return the items.

For hired products, you may cancel your booking within 14 days after the date we send you the order confirmation. You will, however, lose this right if the ceremony takes place before then because, in that case, you acknowledge and request that the hire products will be made available for the ceremony (i.e. within the 14-day period). We will also not be able to refund hired stock after it has been dispatched, which is up to ten days before your ceremony date, as we then have no way of verifying whether it has been used or not, and we are unable to rent the stock to other students for the graduation event. Therefore, if you wish to cancel a hire order, we recommend doing it as quickly as possible.

If you cancel your order within the cooling-off period, you will receive a refund in accordance with our refunds policy. To cancel your order, you must email us, stating your address and order reference and stating that you wish to cancel.

We can take card payments directly via our website. Payments are processed by Shopify and we do not store your card details. We also offer PayPal payments on our website and for large group orders or wholesale customers we can take a BACs transfer.

We only use Royal Mail tracked services to dispatch our domestic orders. Orders placed before 2pm will be shipped the same day while orders placed after that time may be posted the following day. We provide three shipping options. Regular postage usually takes between 3-5 business days, express postage arrives in 1-2 business days and our pre-9am service will arrive before 9am the next business day for orders placed before 2pm.

If you are hiring a gown then you will be asked to enter a 'ceremony date' at check out. Your gown will be dispatched to arrive at least 2 days before that date.

If you are looking to have the products delivered overseas we offer an international post option, which is sent via local post services and takes 2-6 weeks. We also offer an international courier option which is a faster service offering delivery in 3-5 working days. The exact courier used for each shipment will depend on the location, however most commonly these shipments are sent via FedEx, DHL, UPS or DPD.

If you wish to make any changes to your order, please email us promptly at sales.uk@churchillgowns.com. Once the order is shipped we cannot offer refunds for incorrect hire orders.

Gowns and mortarboards come flatly packaged. We recommend that you hang your gown once you receive it so that the creases have time to drop out on their own. Gowns and hoods can also be ironed at low heat or steamed to remove any remaining creases. Similarly, the mortarboards and hoods should be unpacked once received to remove any creases. If you get any marks on a hired product do not attempt to wash or clean it, simply return it to us and it will be dealt with by our cleaning team.

We offer PhD regalia for some universities for purchase, prices at £250-£300 per set. If there is no doctoral regalia listed for your institution we also offer a bespoke robe making service through our partnership with a specialist seamstress. She can make any style of doctoral regalia to order and usually charges around £700 for this service, depending on materials. If that is of interest please email sales.uk@churchillgowns.com with your requirements and she will provide a custom quotation.

Some teaching institutions require staff to wear academic dress for formal occasions and we stock a range of generic hoods, gowns and mortarboards which are usually suitable for this purpose and can be purchased at a much lower rate than university-specific stock from other suppliers. It is worth noting that some institutions have more strict rules and staff must wear the regulation gown and hood from their highest earned qualifications, so it is worth checking before making a purchase.

Unlike other suppliers, we offer a convenient home delivery service for purchased and hired graduation sets. This means you avoid queuing up on the day of your ceremony. At the checkout we will ask you to enter a shipping address, which is where your items will be delivered to. This could be your parents' home, your student accommodation or a hotel you are staying in over graduation. Hired sets will arrive at least two days before your ceremony, so it's worth bearing this in mind when you select which address we should ship them to.

Can I collect and drop off my gown at my graduation ceremony instead of having it delivered to my home?