This article examines the role of public authorities in guaranteeing the right of believers to wear religious attire and its components as an integral element of the exercise of freedom of conscience and religion in the Russian Federation. Through an analysis of regulatory provisions of legislation, the law enforcement practice of public authorities in Russia and foreign countries, as well as the doctrinal positions of legal science, the author concludes that the results of lawmaking and law enforcement in the area under consideration, embodied in the form of regulatory provisions of authorized entities, as well as associated legislative initiatives, do not always correspond to the realities and needs of the objective social reality of modern Russian statehood, the ideas of "living" constitutional law (in the broad sense), the ideas and principles of which are mandatory for implementation in the "letter" of sectoral legislation. Particular attention is paid to the justification of the need to eliminate defects in lawmaking (legal gaps and conflicts), and proposals are formulated for their resolution by improving the regulatory legal framework.