Semiotics of formal menswear of early 20 century

The complex of problems accompanying a process of modern-day reception of historical costume is analyzed. Formal menswear is researched as a hierarchically organized communicational system of semantic elements only conceivable by actors, familiarized with particular semiotic code of the culture. The case of modern-day museum reconstruction of formal menswear of the early XX century is used to illustrate the reasons behind the retrospective semantic misinterpretation of historical costume. In the particular case, a waiter’s uniform was mistakenly perceived by researcher as a typical urban menswear of the 1900’s. A semantic reconstruction of authentic vestimentary codes and meanings was carried out.