日治時期臺灣社會出現多種不同風格、屬性的服裝，分別是具有現代性的洋服、在地性的臺灣服，以及深具殖民性的和服與改良服。在對服裝的態度上，臺人積極主動地追求現代性洋服，但也沒有捨棄向來的臺灣服，而較排拒殖民性格強烈的和服與改良服。誠然不少後殖民研究顯示，日本殖民政府對臺灣社會的控制相當完密，但卻可能落入「殖民制霸」與「反抗至上」的預設框架；從而認為一些殖民時期的現象是被殖民的臺灣社會所特有的，同時也可能將不符合日本當局期待的文化與活動，皆視為反殖民的自主性象徵。我們透過日治時期的臺人服裝文化，一方面可見到日本政府的控制力並不如想像中的強大，實際上臺人擁有相當大可以自主揮灑的空間；另一方面也發現臺人所擁有的自主性並不全然是反抗殖民的象徵，其之產生有不同的層次與對象。

There were a variety of different styles and properties of the garments worn in Taiwan during the Japanese colonial period. These included Western attire that symbolized modernity, Taiwanese clothes that symbolized locality, and the Japanese kimono and reformed clothes that characterized coloniality. Taiwanese pursued modern Western attire actively, but did not abandon Taiwanese fashion, while relatively speaking they avoided the Japanese kimono and reformed clothes. Although many postcolonial studies show that the control of the Japanese colonial government was quite extensive in Taiwanese society, they tend to fall into two camps—“omnipresent colonial system” or “resistance”— which interpret some phenomena in the colonial period as unique, or assume that many activities that did not correspond to colonial expectation symbolize Taiwanese autonomy in the face of the colonial government. However, an examination of the clothing culture of Taiwan in the colonial period shows that the control of the colonial government was far from total. In fact, Taiwanese simply possessed considerable autonomous space. Clothing culture also illustrates that the autonomy of Taiwanese was not entirely a matter of resistance, but was rather produced at different levels and targets.