Matthew Kimball, a 4th-year junior product design major from Medford, Oregon, was wearing all muted tones, contrasting with his outgoing personality. His outfit consisted of a plain t-shirt, a light gray jacket, black pants, a black, slightly distressed leather messenger bag and deep gray socks tucked into light gray and burnt orange Nikes.
“I don’t integrate what I am feeling with what I wear because all that I think about is I am confident,” Kimball said. “I want to feel confident, I want to look confident, so I am going to put on a very well pieced outfit and look how I feel.”
Kimball described his unique style, and what it means to be achromatic, fashion-wise.
Describe your style:
My style is filled with basics. I also love muted tones — specifically, gray. I love playing with different gray tones and values overall. As a rule of thumb, I hate contrast. I hate when people wear everything that just stands out on its own. If you want to wear a nice bright piece, keep everything else kind of subtle. It’s like art — you got to understand composition.

Why do you think it’s important to dress well?
My main mantra is that people need to know there is a difference between dressing well and dressing nicely. You can be in a business program and start dressing nicely. If you start wearing suits, that’s cool, but you have to understand fit. You need to know when dress pant fits like crap. You can be dressing nicely, but if everything fits badly you’re not dressing well.

Do you have any advice for people who are looking to be more fashionable?
You got to have fun with it. I try to do something different everyday. Even though I might not love it I force myself to learn new things and how they work, that’s how you figure out what looks good on you.

Where do you get inspiration?
Art 115. From learning about the color wheel, I learned that my taste was achromatic, [without color]. I love dressing monochromatically, or all the same shades. Interior design class influenced my style because we learned more about color. There you learn about color and lighting. This applies to fashion as well — color schemes and the mood.
It’s good to have a lot of creative mediums around you and to learn about it because they all really influence each other. Everything inspires everything else.

Would you ever consider making your own clothes?
I have always been interested in designing basic shirts, but making them worn a certain way, that look is very expensive because it takes a lot of labor to manufacture that. I have a sewing machine and I alter my own things all the time. I want to play with creating my own clothes. Right now, I would start off with just shirts.