One of the only parameters for this project was to use an “ism” as the narrative backdrop for a book; I chose narcissism. Rather than approach it at a superficial level, I went deeper and examined the psychological origins of narcissism. To properly utilize the medical context, I used text from journals and studies written by Jung, Freud, Lacan, and Camus. The only image used throughout the book is a portrait of Linda Evangelista shot by Helmut Newton; two notoriously narcissistic pillars of the fashion world. Over the course of the pages, the image gradually becomes less and less distorted—a direct parallel to the subject matter at the beginning and end of the book.