Like clothes, costumes are in first place something to dress - since nakedness in stage is not yet easily assumed although it is not anymore an aesthetical or ethical issue. The Body is always socialized through adornment or by the effects of disguise or occultation, and it is characterized by certain signs such as, age, gender, occupation or social status. 
This symbolic function of costumes is substituted by a double game – inside the system of staging as a series of signs connected between each other by a more or less coherent system of costumes; outside the stage, as a reference to our world where costumes also have a certain meaning.

Miguel Pereira