本文從紀爾曼在她獨立創辦、經營與撰寫的《先驅者》月刊上連載的〈女性的服飾〉長文出發，討論她如何透過女性服飾的主題，闡述對近代美國的社會、經濟與性別的批判思想。本文指出，〈女〉文的宗旨並非只提出改革服飾的訴求，而是直指女性服飾背後的主要操縱力量，並要求根本改變。換言之，紀爾曼的終極關懷不只是女性服飾的改革，或女性身體的解放，而是女性整體社會活動的自主性與能動性。紀爾曼透過該文所闡發的批判論述，雖可能過於理想，卻也在某種程度上，將服飾改革帶往更深廣的論述層次，而發人深省。

This article explores the critical discourse of Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935), drawing on her essay, “The Dress of Women,” serialized in the periodical, The Forerunner: A Monthly Magazine (1909-1916), published and written exclusively by her. In “The Dress of Women,” Gilman elaborated on the subject of women’s dresses to put forth her critical analysis of social, economic and gender rela-tionship in modern American society. Despite the fact that “The Dress of Women” discussed and called for the reform of women’s dresses, this article argues that, its purpose went beyond the appeal of dress reform and to critique patriarchal manipulation of women in the society. In other words, Gilman’s ul-timate concern was not only the reform of women’s dresses or the liberation of women’s bodies, but also their subjectivity and agency in social activities. Gilman explicated the evolution of women’s fash-ionable dresses and the mainstream gender ideology in modern American society, as well as evaluated the appeals and achievements of what she called “dress reformers.” This article will show that Gil-man’s critical discourse might be too idealistic to put into practice, but what she proposed through her discourse on women’s dress, at least to a certain extent, had lifted the discourse on dress reform to a more comprehensive level, and thus motivate more reflection upon this subject.