Don't Get Mad, Get Inside

If you're still messing around with keg stands, dorm parties, and the free-before-11 fare of parties, then you'll definitely want to step your game--and connections up with the host-with-the most Marquis Phifer. The man behind the LateBoots brand is launching an exclusive group catering to the more sophisticated bacchanalian set, titled Inside Socializing. If you're lucky enough to get on the list.

Don't Call It A Comeback

Call it a come-up. The Dynamic Duo of Style Marquis Phifer and Sham Shirley are returning to the blogosphere with a new and improved look for their site LateBoots, a collection of photographs, personalities, and most importantly hard work. Calling themselves the New Workers, Phifer and Sham are showing young creative aspirants as well as the world at large just how much power a little bit of perseverance, ambition, creativity, and drive can get you what you want and where you want to be. Through their brand public relations team, Marquis and Sham are spreading their influence through independent fashion designers as well as catching the eye of notable style professionals not only in their stomping grounds of Atlanta and New York City but also abroad. The urbanly urbane Morehouse dandy Marquis Phifer creates a smart and innovative synthesis with the street-smart, edgy, and artistically erudite Sham Shirley giving a new perspective not just on getting ahead in life but on realizing and achieving your dreams. Check out the new site here.

I'm Diggin' It

Daniel Simmons aka Diggy Simmons, the son of hip-hop dynasty legend and mogul Joseph Simmons known better as Rev. Run has certainly grown up from the young pre-teen we watched on MTV's Run's House. His incredibly precocious creativity and keen eye for avant-garde, cutting-edge style have placed him in the spotlight of numerous celebrities and creative professionals, one being budding tastemaker Marquis Phifer. Like all of the members of the Russell family, creative acuity and business sense appear to be inherited family genes and Diggy is no different. But what is surprising audience so much now is his apparent swift execution of lyrical style. Not only is Diggy making people think twice about his artistic abilities but they're seeing reflections of his father in his superb rap skills. Read more to check out a vignette of him freestyling to "Shook Ones" by Mobb Deep and just so your mouth doesn't get to dry from being wide open, it's best to take this one with water.

A Few Good Morehouse Men

Marquis Phifer and the illustrious men of Morehouse College in Atlanta are understanding the need to give back to the community and how to do it with style. The 143-year-old institution of higher learning has gained itself the reputation of being the number one college for producing the most intelligent, successful, eminent, and most of all stylish Black men in America. Alumni such as Martin Luther King Jr., Spike Lee, and the father of the "Morehouse Mystique" Benjamin E. Mays all have stepped up to the challenge of using their talents to better their communities and society at large. Phifer and other students went to Booker T. Washington Early College, Atlanta's school aimed at helping students succeed by providing high school classes that will earn students college credit.

Vive Le Bleu

Continuing with my ongoing obsession with uber-stylishness of Morehouse College's students, Marquis Phifer presents an homage to an infectious trend of blue on campus. The traditional preppy sartorial fare still reigns yet this time he showcases knit cream sweater vests with black and royal blue stripes outlining the edges over dusty blue and goldenrod checkered shirts with navy blazers, light-wash jeans with gaping holes with an ice blue necktie, and an androgynous look for the ladies with a glacier-blue denim jacket with a sapphire-blue necktie over another white dress shirt underneath. The trend isn't a bad one and the addition of neutral handbags keeps the eye from being too overwhelmed by the monchromatic quality of the ensembles. Check out more looks after the jump.

Aspire to Inspire Before You Expire

The stylish and ambitious Marquis Phifer of LateBoots.com is always speaking about the importance of passion, drive, and following your dreams. A bona fide hustler at heart, his blog is his voice that reinforces the idea of self-determination, realizing that the power to shape your own reality lies in your ability to take initiative. This time, he's promoting a gathering sponsored by EventBrite for young creative professionals such as bloggers, models, designers, and artists to network and express their passion for their crafts."The Dress Code" as the soiree is named, will be tomorrow, October 8 at 10 p.m. inside the Licquid Lounge in Atlanta, Georgia. Read more for details.

Bag His Swag

Marquis Phifer is raising his swag as the leaves come falling down this fall. In his latest post on his blog LateBoots, his fascination lies with the J. Crew sack. And Marquis isn't the only one who spies this bag with his aesthetic eye. His fellow and equally progressively stylish students at Morehouse College also prize the bag that walks a fine line between messenger bag and sac. Its variety of colors, especially that of the neutral canvas color on Marquis' bag, makes it an especially easy accessory to throw with an ensemble and also a bag that allows for casual comfort and usefulness against its more ostentatious siblings. Take a look at J. Crew's selection of bags and clothing at their main site here. Photos from LateBoots.com.

'House of Cool

What's it like to attend a college where stylish and smooth is the status quo? Marquis Phifer, creator of the LateBoots brand does. A student at Morehouse College, known for its illustrious Black male alumni such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Spike Lee, Morehouse has an even more illustrious history of its stylish students. Cardigans, colored striped bowties, velvet slippers, and crested blazers are the sartorial arsenal of the men of the "Morehouse Mystique". Morehouse College prides itself on breeding "Renaissance Men with a social conscience", and stresses its students to be "well-read, well-traveled, well-spoken, well-dressed, and well-balanced". Check out the photos below from LateBoots.com.

Just When You Thought I Was Done...

I was saving the best for last; Marquis Phifer, the poster boy of The Flashy Life indulged in a bit of pomp and circumstance while getting his flash on in all white at a garden party in the backyard of his best friend fashion stylist Brooke's Hampton's villa. "What did you expect? You, love, me. They keep saying that I’m the next, so I’ll just continue to eat these low fat muffins. I should be on hustle probation, I’m about to lose my license so I can continue to be chauffeured. And at this point I’m about to start attending operas’ and playing golf. I’m redoing my friends circle, and for starters the requirements: multiple addresses–tell a friend. A little shallow yeah, but I enjoy swimming. Honey B and myself snuck out the city of New York and headed to her parents house in the Hamptons. Keeping it 100 I forgot what event we went to earlier this day, and Honey B is sleep as I type this at 4:08am. We just knew that we had to show up. We had a table, so we dressed well." Check out more of Marquis' garden party adventures in Flashy Wonderland at his blog, LateBoots, here.

So That's Where You've Been Hiding....

It's been a while since you've heard me post anything about the mini mogul I hate to love, Marquis Phifer. Seems he's been hiding out in New York City's Financial District. It had been a while since he'd thrown me and his followers a juicy bone detailing the exploits of what it means to truly live the Flashy Life. In his post "Give Me My Blanky", we catch Marquis glamming it up at La Esquina, a hot spot with a nice underground chic flare. This time, we find members Sky Gellatly and Valerie of Team Epiphany, a lifestyle marketing agency with high profile clients such as Time Warner, Pepsico, Universal, and Def Jam Recordings as his guest appearances. I had to say, my Windows 7 desktop theme that changes every ten seconds was getting a little bit boring after a while...now I have a chance to finally expect something new when the glare from the east shines on my face in the morning...check out Marquis' post at his blog LateBoots here.

 

 

Summer Invidia - Marquis Phifer

Just when I thought Marquis Phifer's life couldn't get anymore flashy than mine, school lets out. Now the mogul's on his way to spend another summer in New York City, the mecca of the Flashy Life to blaze more trails in fashion and get more stardust on his shoulders. In one of his posts titled "Pressure Made Me a Diamond", a photograph of him looking for his "one-piece hitter-quitter" which happens to be a white blazer and a pair of khaki drawstring shorts from H&M. No doubt Mr. Phifer is Hamptons-ready; I can't stop my inbox from being inundated with Twitter text-message updates saying "Should I pace the triple-breasted blazer or not?", "I have to make sure my suitcase is 50lbs or less", and "Gotta find a place in New York". I'm looking forward to seeing Marquis' summer exploits and New York City and if I'm lucky I might get a few new hot photographs that will go oh-so-nicely on my desktop background slide show. But until then, I wait as dreams of flashing lights and fashion shows dance in my head...

The Flashy Life

"Vanity...pictures of magazines and beauty queens...vanity...mirrors and cameras, so many beauty queens...vanity...it's so good to be, popular and glamorous, we love ourselves and no one else" - Lady Gaga


What is the Flashy Life? It is a lifestyle devoted to all things purely aesthetic. Flashing lights, fashion, art, design...these are our mediums upon which we paint our vanity-stained masterpieces. Our hunger is created by that which we feed on; the more we are talked about, adored, and ravished, the more we will want to be talked about, adored, ravished. We are not superficial. For we we seek to find the beauty that penetrates into the very core of what it means to be alive. We mutilate ourselves, cutting off parts of us and placing them within our works, the glittering crystal artifices that we surround ourselves with. We live by line, shape, movement, rhythm, emphasis, color, space, and imagination. We enjoy being beautiful. We are the ego monsters; we want to eat your hearts and eat your eyes as you gaze upon as drifting by like gilded gazelles. And no one has mastered the Flashy Life quite like my muse Marquis Phifer. Each day as I wake (with my laptop Alice next to me), his face is the first I see each morning. A true devotee to the Flashy Life, the exploits of his blog LateBoots display an inimitable, raw, real glamour that feeds my addiction to the flashing lights...I sympathize with the raccoon...his obsession with shiny objects is no different from mine; his scale is simply smaller. Check out my favorite shiny objects from Marquis Phifer's blog below...

You Don't Have To Be A Morehouse Man to Dress Like One...

Morehouse College, located in Atlanta, Georgia is a private, all-male, historically Black institution of higher learning that is responsible for producing the nation's most influential and successful Black male business leaders, activists, orators, and philanthropists. It is one of two Black colleges that has produced a Rhodes Scholar and notable alumni of the institution include Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., filmmaker Spike Lee, Olympic Gold Medalist Edwin Moses, and fashion guru Fonzworth Bentley. Not only does the college have a reputation of turning out some of the finest and highest-educated Black men of any other campus, they also have a reputation for housing some of the most stylish. My favorite fashion blogger and stylist Marquis Phifer is a student as Morehouse College and is definitely an indicator of the famous adage, "You can tell a Morehouse Man but you can tell him much". So if you wanna get the look of the hottest brothers on campus, then take a look at the sets below.

Atlanta Preppy Mens by prettyboypaul featuring Mulberry bags

All Black Everything by prettyboypaul featuring adidas Y

 

Daddy I'm So Sorry... by prettyboypaul on Polyvore.com

Get Your Hustle On...

 "The fact is, everyone is in sales. Whatever area you work in, you do have clients and you do need to sell." - Jay Abraham - Marketing Expert. If you were a business, what would you be selling? I know someone who does...

Yep...here it is: another posts about the friend-in-my-head (except Facebook) slash inspiration, slash mogul in the making--Marquis Phifer. In his latest post, Phifer speaks about the choice between getting a degree and a simultaneous rapidly blossoming career. Though some of us can hardly say we've branded ourselves by the age of 25 (I've still got time...), his post as well as previous posts have aroused a hustler drive in me lately, so much that I actually went to the library and pulled a couple of books about marketing and public relations. Not because I was planning to start my own business, but because I wanted to develop the business of self. We are all business, we each have "departments", some of which are our love lives, our school lives, our work lives, our social lives, and our family lives. The partnerships, associations, transactions, hiring, and firing we do in these departments influence how much more effectively our business/selves will function and be more productive. The way I see it, I'm Diddy...I'm a hard-core, go-hard-or-go-home executive and I'm making sure that the Paul Beasley brand represents ambition, upward mobility, sophistication, creativity, ingenuity, and innovation. So evaluate your own "human resources" skills: are your associations conducive to promoting your image, or are they taking your company in an entirely different direction? In the mind of a hustler, "If you can't change the people around you, change the people around you". If you have to lay off some people who aren't quite working at maximum efficiency, just tell them "Business is business". 

Why You So Obsessd With Me?

Many of us have individuals that are in our lives whether directly or indirectly that we look up to and aspire to be like. We call these people role models. I've always disagreed with the concept of the "role model" simply because its very name creates an impossible task. How can one say "I want to be like him/her when I grow up"? When these persons were at that stage in their lives, I'm certain they weren't thinking, "I want to be like me when I grow up".
The things they learned and the qualities they sought were most likely due to someone else's accomplishments. So in essence, wanting to "be like someone when I grow up" literally means "I want to be like this person, and the person they wanted to be like, and the person they wanted to be like...". Instead of the word "role model", I choose the word inspiration. And no has inspired me lately quite like Marquis Phifer of LateBoots. His blog is my Firefox homepage, and I follow it daily to read about and be inspired by the hustle of this 23-year old junior at Morehouse College. Phifer's age and drive show me that you don't have to be a 30-year-old college graduate to be making moves. His hustle mentality gives me the drive and inspiration to work on this blog. His fashion interest and work in the industry creates a rapport of commiseration between Marquis and I. I must say, when my friend request to him on Facebook was accepted, I felt more determined than ever to not seek to follow in his footsteps, but to seek what he sought. And even though I hate to admit it, I'm obsessed. But what can I say: I'm highly attracted to highly attractive people...

Midweek Blog Roundup

Here's some of the goings-on and happenings in some of the other blogs we follow. Every Wednesday and Sunday, we'll give you a heads-up on some of our favorite recent posts from our favorite blogs. Enjoy...

LateBoots: I Call Her Big Red  Wednesday, March 3, 2010

The Urban Gentleman: Myron Rolle Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Trace Magazine: Ryan Perfect: The World Is a Ghetto Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Kreemo Blog: Luggage Pickup Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Scene Spotlight: Marquis Phifer of LateBoots.com

We're introducing to some and perhaps re-introducing to others a rising force in fashion blogging, Marquis Phifer, founder of the blog LateBoots, which chronicles his day-to-day hustle as an up-and-coming fashion fixture, Atlanta socialite, Morehouse College student, branding guru, and fashion blogger. His neo-dandy style and unbelievably candid photographic style can be seen throughout his posts that depict him impeccably dressed at many Atlanta parties and fashion shows. Phifer's mentality is extremely ambitious yet he rolls up his sleeves willingly and works himself to the bone to get noticed. His dedication to his work is probably the object most people notice through his blog, and his fearless swagger has lead some envious minds to create a hate Twitter page for Phifer inhospitably named "HateBoots". The 22-year old is aware of his cocky demeanor yet repudiates claims of arrogance by showing that anyone who is self-made has the right to be confident in their own achievements and abilities. Along with his right-hand blogger the equally stylish and avant-garde Sham, LateBoots is setting the art and fashion scene in Atlanta and New York ablaze. Below are some of Marquis' looks from Lookbook.nu.