The article is devoted to the research of the traditional costume as the material embodiment of the cultural code. The semantic-symbolic structure of a traditional costume undoubtedly reflects significant cultural information about its owner: social and age status, gender, self-awareness, etc. All this together reflects the cultural code of one or another national culture.

From the perspective of this research, the traditional women’s costume of the peoples of Eurasia, which, in the opinion of researchers, allows even deeper understanding of the popularity of its motifs in the creative practice of modern designers. In the article, the very history of the emergence and evolution of the basic elements of a traditional women’s costume is considered as a kind of reflection of cultural codes. The researching on the basis of functionality expressed in everyday, festive, ceremonial and ritual functions of clothes is likened to structural components of a cultural code. At the same time, one can trace how over time the iconography, symbolism and semantics associated with his transition from one category to another change in a costume.