Mat Brown and Matt Fitzgerald, online developers/fashion rivals

Photograph: Roxana Marroquin

This interview is two for the price of one. I’m giddy. Matt Fitzgerald, describe your personal style.
Fitzgerald: I wake up in the morning and I think to myself, What supervillain have I not dressed up like recently?

So you’re saying all supervillains wear rolled-up jeans and a T-shirt?
Fitzgerald: Well, on their weekends, when they’re just kicking back and not causing chaos, they like something regular.

Mat Brown, how would you describe Matt’s personal style?
Brown: I would describe it as “escaped inmate.”

Matt, how would you describe Mat Brown’s style?
Fitzgerald: When I look at him, I think, That is one sexy 13-year-old boy. How does his mom manage to come all the way up from Virginia to dress him every day?

Brown: She’s gotten very efficient.

Fitzgerald: I thought they installed a bullet train from D.C., just so she could get here on time.

Mat, how do you respond to that?
Brown: Matt likes to spread nasty rumors. My mom actually just drives up in her minivan—you know, she gets up at 4am, has a light breakfast and heads up I-95. Then we have a look at my sweaters and make a decision on which to wear. It’s mostly based on which one I didn’t wear the day before.

Do you also discuss which collared shirt should poke through the sweater?
Brown: I have some basic guidelines that were put in place by my girlfriend.

Such as?
Brown: Well, for instance, my hot-pink shirt doesn’t go with my maroon sweater.

What sweater does it go with?
Brown: I don’t know that she’s given me a lot of advice on that.

Mysterious. Matt Fitzgerald, when do you wear your hot-pink shirts?
Fitzgerald: Only when I can pair them with my neon-yellow sweater vest. I want people to think I look like a fruit smoothie.

I want to ask about your extensive, usually ironic T-shirt collection. When you’re out shopping, how do you know if a new T-shirt is wry enough to make the cut?
Fitzgerald: I ask myself, If I wear that T-shirt, will I be able to get into a bar that is way too young for me? In most cases, the T-shirt doesn’t help with that, but it makes me feel younger.

Do you have any cereal-brand T-shirts? That’s really the bottom of the irony barrel.
Fitzgerald: Well, there was a period of time where my mom was throwing out a lot of my T-shirts for being too offensive. I’m not sure she would have let anything representing the Kellogg’s company into the house.

That’s a good woman. What’s a real T-shirt of yours that she threw out for being offensive?
Fitzgerald: I had a shirt depicting the photo of Janet Jackson with that other person’s hands cupping her breasts.

Classy. Mat Brown, if I put a gun to your head and made you wear one of Matt’s outfits, which would you choose?
Brown: That’s a tough one. Some of those ironic T-shirts are very cute. Actually, wait, he has this one shirt that truly looks good. It’s collared, and there’s some colored stitching. It blew me away when he came into a meeting that morning and I thought, Wow, Matt Fitzgerald is dressed reasonably. I noticed that he got several compliments that day. He’s never worn it since.

The admiration probably made him uncomfortable. Mat Brown, you are from Virginia. Matt is from New Jersey. Could we call your style rivalry a civil war of fashion?
Brown: I think that’s a civil war the South would win, which—you may know—is not how things turned out originally. The South is associated with such things as civility and gentlemanliness and not dressing like a high-schooler.

Fitzgerald: I feel New Jersey is underestimated in almost all situations, including kicking fashion butt.

So who’s a bigger style icon for you: Springsteen or Bon Jovi?
Fitzgerald: Bon Jovi. He had acid-washed jeans.