Semiotic interpretation of stage costume

The aim of the study is to identify cause-and-effect relations in semiotic interpretation of stage costume. The article explores the history of stage costume development, briefly presents its periodization with characteristic features of each stage, and socio-cultural forms of encoding. The scientific novelty of the research lies in focusing on the issue of costume semantics as an important component of the expressive system of modern music and theater productions. The research establishes that stage (theatrical) costume has its own developmental regularities and periodization caused by many factors. It is found that in the 20th and 21st centuries, there is an increasing interaction of two main trends: 1) stage costume is characterized by a high degree of codification and symbolism, with significant transformations in the specific content of symbols; 2) a variety of techniques are observed in achieving various aspects of “authenticity” in relation to theatrical action as a whole and theatrical costumes in particular.