There are those twins who take great pains to establish separate personalities and lives. And then there are the Mueller twins, a pair of in-demand, large-personality iPad app designers whom (ex-Intel) Nitasha Tiku profiles in the Observer’s BetaBeat today.
>The Muellers’ similarities are more than superficial. The twins, who are 27 and stand 5’5″, share the same bank account. They share the same calendar. They share the same curriculum vitae. The same sexual orientation (gay), brownstone (Prospect Heights) and taste in boyfriends (“over 30”). They share the same profession, and the same specialty (interactive design). They even, in a manner of speaking, share an identity. Email the Brothers Mueller at their shared account, and the only way to tell which Mueller is responding is by whose name shows up first in the signature: Nate & Kirk versus Kirk & Nate.
They also dress alike. Not just for photo shoots, but as a matter of course in everyday life. They consider themselves “living decorative objects,” you see. “Everyone does a double-take because they’re so handsome and well-dressed and there are two of them,” explains Newsweek’s Melissa Lafsky, who hired them to work on the magazine’s iPad app. “They’re sort of the modern Jewish mother’s dream.” Also Martha Stewart’s dream, apparently — the first question she asked about the brothers upon introduction was whether they’d appear on air. Other people have more forward queries for the pair.
“They’ll ask questions about us, like do we date the same guy or do you sleep with the same guy,” explained Kirk. “So we’ll purposefully answer, like, ‘Not usually,’ or ‘I don’t know,’ at the same time. Nate will say, ‘Not really,’ and I’ll say, ‘I don’t know.’ It’ll explode their head.”
“And then we walk away,” finished Nate.
