The Costume Museum of the Kyiv National University of Technology and Design ("Costume Library") is a collection of reconstructed and authentic historical clothes, which was created and stored at the Department of Costume Art Modeling of the Faculty of Design.

During 1995 - 2021, teachers and students of the department reproduced more than 500 samples of clothing, footwear and accessories. The collection presents the fashion of different historical epochs, from antiquity to the twentieth century, and different geographical regions - costumes of Europe, the East, Ukraine. The success of the project was ensured by the presence of a unique team of enthusiasts, which included such teachers of the department as Olga Mamchych, Svitlana Markova, Halyna Kokorina, Iryna Davydenko, Alla Baranova. The general scientific management of the project was carried out by the head of department of art modeling of a suit, professor Tatyana Nikolaeva.

Work on the reconstruction of clothing was carried out using modern methods of modeling and design, as well as on the basis of creative cooperation with many domestic and foreign museums, which store historical and ethnographic clothing. Long-term partners of the Department of Costume Art Modeling in this work are the National Museum of Ukrainian Folk Decorative Art (Kyiv), the National Museum of Folk Architecture and Life of Ukraine (Pirogiv), the National Center of Folk Culture "Ivan Honchar Museum" (Kyiv), Chernihiv Historical Museum. VV Tarnovsky, Museum of Ethnography and Crafts of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (Lviv).

The European suit is most fully presented in the collection. Its reproduction was made possible by the sponsorship of Textile-Contact, one of the leading textile companies in the Ukrainian market, as well as Seldiko (Kyiv), which is a subsidiary of Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy (LVMH) and works at of the market of elite cosmetics in Ukraine. Foreign students from the Department of Costume Art Modeling  from Armenia, Georgia, Russia, China, Nepal, and Iran were involved in the reconstruction of the costume, reproducing their national costume. The collection was constantly replenished with samples of Ukrainian costumes - authentic and reconstructed.

The created collection inspired the project participants to organize numerous exhibitions at KNUTD and other exhibition grounds. In 2015, the University created a "Design Studio for the Reconstruction of Historical Costume", and with the active participation of the university management - Rector of KNUTD, Professor Gryshchenko Ivan and Dean of the Faculty of Design, Professor Kolosnichenko Marina, equipped a specialized exhibition hall for clothing demonstrations. During 2005 - 2021, the following exhibitions were held, in particular: "History in costumes" (Kyiv, National Museum of Ukrainian Folk Decorative Art, 2005), "Playing with time" (Kyiv, Alta Center, 2007), "From Gothic to Art Nouveau" (Kyiv, Art Arsenal, 2011), "European costume of the XV-XX centuries" ( Chernihiv Regional Historical Museum named after VV Tarnovsky, 2014), "500 years of European fashion" (KNUTD, 2015), "Ukrainian couture" (Central Department Store, 2016), "Whims of men's fashion" (KNUTD) , 2016), "Capital fashion of the XVII-XIX centuries: cinema and artifacts" (Kyiv, Victoria Museum, 2017), "Wind from the East" (KNUTD, 2018), "He and she" KNUTD, 2019), "Classics are back" (KNUTD, 2020), "Ukrainian Baroque" (KNUTD, 2021) Shows of clothing models from the collection were also arranged: "Models Madeleine Vione" (2010, 2012 ), "Fashion of the twentieth century" (2018, 2019).

Work on the reconstruction of historical clothing fills the process of studying the history of fashion with special meaning and contributes to the formation of the future designer's personality. At the same time, the collection of replicas of historical costumes created at KNUTD is of value to a wide range of specialists in the field of fashion - as a creative laboratory and consulting center on the history of fashion.

29.11.2021