Upon completing their matriculation examination and graduating from upper-secondary school, Finnish students earn the right to wear the student cap. While Anglo-American academics wear the squarish cap with a tassel, Nordic countries share a somewhat different look. White velvet, black leather, and a symbol of graduation and First of May festivities, the cap’s history in Finland is over 150 years old.
German Studentenverbindung meeting – see the resemblance? © Wikimedia Commons.
The story of the student cap began in 1845 when Students from Uppsala University, Sweden, who were participating in the Nordic Student Meeting held in Copenhagen, decided to unify their look by designing a stylish white cap with a black brim. The style was clearly inspired by what was worn at the time by students part of student associations in Germany (Studentenverbindung). This was a time when student uniforms were still a thing, and the hat became a popular part of the student uniform elsewhere in Sweden and also Denmark, where it was adopted in 1856. Twenty years after the cap’s invention, in 1865, students from University of Helsinki joined in. Within a few years, the trend had really caught on. Women were not allowed as members of the Student’s Union and by extension did not have the right to wear the cap until 1897. The women who actually were allowed into university had to find alternative headgear, one of them being the 1890s women’s student cap. This one was abandoned after men’s one became the commonplace unisex version. The Havis Amanda statue at Kauppatori has been given her cap for First of May at least since 1921, maybe even 1909! Back then, however, it was a prank done illegally — permission from authorities was granted in 1951 and the rest is history.
The Uppsala student cap from 1847. © Wikimedia Commons.
The Finnish student cap differed from those in other countries in that its cockade is golden and has the form of a lyre surrounded by laurels. This lyre is actually the insignia of University of Helsinki. Even today it is the de facto standard cockade for all fresh upper-secondary graduates, whether or not they intend to pursue further education at Helsinki. However, back in the day, the matriculation examination, i.e. the final exams that earn you the hat, also functioned as the university entrance exam for University of Helsinki, so upon completing the exam, you were technically already a student of the university. The lyre is still the most common cockade, but technically if you wanted to (and studied at some other university than Helsinki), you could change it to match your own alma mater.
The student cap is the definitive part of your look for First of May, i.e. Vappu, and you’ll see plenty of people walking around town and having picnics while wearing their student cap. The look of your student cap may tell you more than you think – not just how many Vappu parties it has survived. For example, while the usual Finnish student cap has a cockade with a diameter of 14 or 16 mm, the student cap of Swedish-speaking Finns typically has a 22 mm cockade, plus a rim with decorative stiches and a slightly bigger, “poofier”, crown. If you peek inside a hat, it’s usually white and blue, but other colours may be used to signify regions or student nations, such as yellow-and-black for Savo region or red-and-white for Häme region. If you see (as you will during Vappu) someone with a white hat but with a colored tassel, you know they have graduated from vocational school or polytechnic: for example, gold for vocational Business IT graduates, blue for Health care assistants, red for students at polytechnics. The true Vappu heroes, students of University of Technology, wear a cap with a black tassel. Curiously enough, those with doctorates are not supposed to wear their doctoral hats for Vappu but their upper-secondary caps just as everybody else. Sometime in the mid 2000s, designer Paola Suhonen and advertising agency Bob Helsinki invented the “student beanie”. It was somewhat frowned upon as an alternative, but the designer’s idea was to democratize the symbol of higher education in that anyone could wear it. While the beanie enjoyed some popularity, it never became a standard wearable.
Happy First of May! © Wikimedia Commons.
Up until the 1950s, the student cap used to be worn as a general summer hat anytime during university summer holiday 30 May – 30 September. No wonder the caps of the elderly have turned a respectable shade of yellow. Remember that to try to bleach or wash away the yellow is not encouraged: the (dis)coloring of your cap is a badge of honor in that it either shows your respectable age or how many Vappu parties you have truly lived. Nowadays the symbol of a student are the overalls, which became popular in the 1970s, and the graduation hat is usually worn only for Vappu related events and certain academic ceremonies. However, there is still no rule saying that the student cap cannot be worn outside of Vappu. For example, Flora’s Day on 13 May has traditionally (since the 19th century!) been another academic spring festival, so if you don’t want to put your cap back in its storage just yet, why not use this as an excuse to keep it out a bit longer.
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