But what makes it such an engrossing read is his almost hallucinatory attention to detail: the frozen-rigid clothes limiting his movements, the blisters in his fingers turning to ice, and the maddening wide-open twilight of the Antarctic.
In a press release Mr Xenophon reveals he refused to be styled by the magazine, sticking to his rigid $100 clothes cap for the shoot which he says includes Lowes shoes and Kmart undies.
Within the fanzines it's absolutely rigid about what clothes you can wear.
"Usually Balenciaga is very rigid but the movement in the clothes this time became important".
After ten minutes in a blizzard at -30C she recalls having to use a hair dryer to remove her clothes, which had frozen rigid.
Most were still clad in muddy clothes and wrapped in plastic, their rigid limbs jutting out and faces bruised by debris and contorted in agony.
Gene Pressman, the co-president of Barney's, which is now the only outlet in New York for Alaia's clothes, says, "We're usually very rigid when it comes to deliveries.
That's why one girl's California-based family worried less about traditionally rigid Hindu roles and more about wearing yellow clothes that they felt honored the fates in a way that would bring her success.
Some clothes are soft and thin, others thick and rigid.
Even though Mr. Armani's tailoring can sometimes look a bit rigid, as if he confused fierce crispness with couture polish, the clothes were a step above his ready-to-wear.
Rykiel's boutique offered a fresh alternative to many of the more rigid designs of the time, and in the early Seventies she pioneered clothes with exposed seams, and no hems or linings.
