Abstract: This article considers the Yakut traditional costume, which has attracted particular attention of the public and scholars in Sakha Republic (Yakutia) since 1990’s. For the past quarter of a century, Yakut folk costume became an object of the various experiments and reconstructions in the process of reviving national traditions. Such peculiar attitude on the traditional costume demonstrates the transformation of people’s ethnic identity, which developed under the influence of the national and regional historical events, and at this point has reached completion. The theoretical-methodological basis for this research in accordance with its interdisciplinary characters consists of the following methods: systemic, historical-typological, cultural-historical, socio-cultural, ethnographic surveying and recording of oral tradition trough in-depth interview, photo and video facts. The conducted research allowed revealing particular attitude on the folk costume, and certain hidden dispute in the society concerning of how the Yakut traditional costume should look like. This leads to an important question: how the look of the traditional costume relates to the understanding of native culture, ethnic identity and the need to show it with differentiation of the “native and foreign”.