The article is devoted to the study of a Kazan philistine costume of the first half of the 19th century as an integral feature of social quality in the conditions of the class system. This period in Russian history is the time of transition to a bourgeois society, during which the views on fashion and beauty changed, which was reflected in the dress and appearance of people. The main source that allows to recreate a philistine image of that period is the description of the Kazan philistine property, drawn up during the transfer to the trusteeship or sold for debts. The analysis of archival materials, most of which were introduced into scientific circulation for the first time, made it possible to reconstruct a Russian petty bourgeois suit and to present a visual image of an ordinary citizen and the townspeople of the period under study. The approaches to the study of this issue are based on the methods used in microhistory and historical anthropology with the use of lexical-semantic analysis elements. The study showed that philistine clothing is a social marker reflecting the social-cultural identity of an urban commoner, taking into account gender and ethnic-confessional features. The costume of an urban commoner as a whole retained a traditional image for Russia, which was formed during the era prior to Peter I, which was reflected, among other things, in lexical archaisms. In the first half of the 19th century the social-cultural mentality of a petty bourgeois remained generally at the level of a class-based mentality.