oversized, overthinking

can my liberal arts education really "give me an advantage" at fashion school? so far, all it has done is left me stumped by my own academicism. or maybe if i really was a good academic thinker i could unstump myself-- but instead i have fifty drawings of shirts to do and i can't get past my need to reconcile these two ideas:

rei kawakubo realizing "that clothes could be the body and the body could be the clothes."

and the history of the shirt: "until the middle of the nineteenth century the shirt was always worn next to the skin; even when an undershirt of vest was later worn beneath it its main purpose continued as a protective layer between the skin and its outer clothing."

the shirt, in accordance with kawakubo's mentality, is the fundamental piece of clothing. it has historically been the closest to the skin, and its function is rooted in protecting the body. how then does that position the body when the shirt --unadorned with layers-- disregards the shape of the body? For example, does an oversized garment hide the body in disavowal or in protection? does the separate movement of a big shirt from the body (as opposed to one that moves when the torso moves) call attention to human movement and its relation to clothing or does it push the garment to the forefront and lose reference to the body all together?

Furthermore, does the fact that we are able to ask these questions just call attention to the frivolity of clothes? At this point, the clothes we talk about in blogs were not designed to provide mobility in labor, for example. I should consider my theoretical twisting a luxury. Because where clothes are not developed strictly according to function, I guess one must, or one has the opportunity to, find another reason to make them. If only I detangle my pencil from my head. And if that ever happens, my next goal will be to separate my head from the design process altogether.