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Excerpt from the article "The rental life" by Jesse Hicks
Full article is here Rental Life

Inside we found an austere, retro-modern décor teeming with hipsters. Behind them, the view of Times Square exploded so brightly it obliterated all detail.

Wardrobe NYC’s von Sperling had told me that New York, like its West Coast doppelgänger, Los Angeles, was a city of conflicted dreamers. Though they worked hard and played hard, somewhere deep inside they nursed a feeling of primal dissatisfaction with themselves. I knew that feeling, and now I was among them. They swirled around me with studied indifference, gazing down on Times Square with what they hoped was a look of ennui. Obviously, I wasn’t the only one faking it.

At first, the “cooler-than-thou” atmosphere felt oppressive. But as we sat on gold couches, drinking by candlelight and admiring the monochrome erotica on the walls, I began to feel at home. Despite my personality makeover and rented glamour, no one had yet recognized my extraordinary uniqueness. No one had greeted me with a red carpet and popping flashbulbs. I’d spent all this time making myself fabulous…and no one had noticed.

In a way, though, I had become one of them. Not by copying their look or aping the self-confidence that seemed to come naturally to them. The revelation, when it came, was a little like the ending of The Wizard of Oz. I didn’t need those ruby slippers—the car, the watch, the wardrobe—to go home. I’d been home all along, among people trying just as hard to impress me as I was them. We were all kindred spirits, self-conscious and playing dress-up for each other.

That’s how we’d all come together in this penthouse bar with overpriced drinks and a spectacular view. That’s what we were paying for, after all: the view of ourselves. For the price of admission—the price I’d paid for my rented persona, the time I’d put into becoming Brad Briggs—I got to watch other people, watch them watching me. We could play our roles until, like in a movie, we all disappeared, back out into the dark night from which we’d come.