Kelvin Davis - Notoriously Dapper: How to Be a Modern Gentleman with Manners, Style and Body Confidence

Notoriously Dapper

How to be a Modern Gentleman with Manners, Style, and Body Confidence.

by

Kelvin Davis

Copyright 2017 Kelvin Davis.
Published by Mango Publishing Group, a division of Mango Media Inc.

Cover Design: Roberto Nez
Layout & Design: Roberto Nez

Mango is an active supporter of authors rights to free speech and artistic expression in their books. The purpose of copyright is to encourage authors to produce exceptional works that enrich our culture and our open society.

Uploading or distributing photos, scans or any content from this book without prior permission is theft of the authors intellectual property. Please honor the authors work as you would your own. Thank you in advance for respecting our authors rights.

For permission requests, please contact the publisher at:
Mango Publishing Group
2850 Douglas Road, 3rd Floor
Coral Gables, FL 33134 USA

For special orders, quantity sales, course adoptions and corporate sales, please email the publisher at or +1.800.509.4887.

Notoriously Dapper: How to be a Modern Gentleman with Manners, Style, and Body Confidence.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication number: 2017952274
ISBN: (paperback) 978-1-63353-621-0, (ebook) 978-1-63353-622-7
BISAC category code:
SEL023000 SELF-HELP / Personal Growth / Self-Esteem
REF011000 REFERENCE / Etiquette

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Chapter 1
Gentleman, Redefined

Chapter 2
Gentleman Gestures

Chapter 3
Loving Yourself

Chapter 4
Benefits of Being Body Confident

Chapter 5
Choosing to Be Great

Chapter 6
The Bro Code

Chapter 7
The Art of Courtship

Chapter 8
Modeling Good Behavior

Chapter 9
Behavior at the Workplace

Chapter 10
Marriage, Money & Morality

Chapter 11
First Time Fatherhood

Chapter 12
Managing Your Time

Chapter 13
Family Affairs

Chapter 14
Infidelity: How to Prevent and Deal

Chapter 15
Love, Laugh, and Live Your Life

Every dream starts with a vision. Every vision begins with a passion. Every passion starts with love.

Notoriously Dapper

On September 10, 1987, a boy was born in Columbia, South Carolina. Little did he know what life held for him, how blessed he would be, and how much love he would share with the world. That little boy grew up to be me. Hey, for those who dont know me, Im Kelvin C. Davis II, the creator and founder of Notoriously Dapper, a body positive mens style blog. I have always been fascinated with art and fashion seeing pictures of really well dressed people always intrigued me. I have always felt that pictures say so much more than words. Style can do the same. So naturally, when you add them both together, they evoke an array of feelings, thoughts, and words that come to mind. The story of my 30-year journey to becoming a body positive gentleman will hopefully help you embrace your own journey and find the beauty in the struggle. There have been plenty of books written about etiquette for men; you may ask, what makes mine different? Thats a good question. My perspective is what makes this different. Lets face it; Im a young, black, male millennial. Although I have been blessed with parents who are amazing, loving, and supportive, simply being who I am in society has been rough for me some days.

Growing up in the white suburbs of Irmo, South Carolina, caused some confusion for me. People would often tell me that I talked white and dressed white. I didnt really understood what that meant until my middle school years, when I moved to Orangeburg for two years (7th and 8th grade). Being constantly told that I didnt act black was kind of confusing for me. I mean, I listened to rap music, I could dance, and I was clearly black. But for some, I guess I was never black enough. During this time, I was also shopping in the husky section. My mom would make it seem special, as if it was this exclusive shopping club for cool kids. She has a way of making me feel better about things. I remember in middle school, a girl told me she liked my jeans! I was excited because she was one of the popular girls and was super sexy. She asked where I got them from, and I told her with all the pride in my voice, These are from the husky section. She laughed and said, You mean the fat boy section? I was like, Nah, the husky section. She then notified me that husky was a nice way of saying fat boy.That was my first time being called fat, and I have to admit it hurt me. I felt shamed and didnt want to shop in the husky section anymore. My love for clothes and fashion was still there, but it couldnt emerge in full force due to my size at the time.

By high school, I had grown some and was able to shop in normal stores. My mother went to Myrtle Beach one weekend for a work conference. While she was there, she bought me a pink polo shirt from the Ralph Lauren outlet store there. It was a bright fuchsia pink, and I LOVED IT. I had never seen any guy wear that style of shirt before, and I was super excited to be one of the first at my school to rock it. I ironed it, hung it up, and waited for Monday to come so I could straight UP stunt on these students. Monday came, I got dressed for school, and I was rocking the pink polo. I got onto my bus, and everyone was like, DAMNNNNNNNN, thats dope. Where did you get that shirt? I was feeling myself at that moment, and for the first time I felt CONFIDENT AF. Of course I had some haters that said stuff like, Thats a faggot color, or my personal favorite, You know thats a girl shirt, right? But the girls LOVED me for wearing it. I got all the attention that day, and it helped boost my self-confidence. I wore the collar popped up also; I was still kind of chunky and had some rolls in my neck. So I popped the collar to hide them a little bit. Unbeknownst to me, there was a musical artist who was on the come-up wearing the same type of clothing and colors that I was wearing: Kanye West. The more I wore these bright-colored polo shirts with the collar popped, the more I got noticed for my broad and fearless sense of style. I went from being a middle school husky kid to being a high school fashion trendsetter. People nicknamed me Kanye East, cause we had the same swagger at the time. When I started following Kanye and what he was doing in hip-hop, it dawned on me that I was doing the same thing, but in high school on a smaller scale.

You see, before Kanye, a lot of rappers and hip-hop artists dressed in long white tees and oversized street wear. He came out of nowhere with this college prep type swag and turned the game upside down, the same way I did when I wore that fuchsia pink polo with the color popped. That day set the tone for how I dressed in life. I had always been afraid of wearing certain things in middle school because of my size. But when I got to high school, I wore what I wanted to wear, when I wanted to wear it. This helped me develop the fearless fashion sense I have today. Im one of the biggest Kanye West fans because of this. I feel as of we have lived parallel lives for quite some time. There wasnt any role model for me growing up I didnt have any body icons or fashion icons. The only black male model I remember as a kid was Tyson Beckford. Little did I know all of this would come full circle for me.

Now that we live in a digital age, its a lot easier to put who you are, your journey, and your story out there. When I created Notoriously Dapper, I not only wanted to show off my style as a bigger guy, but also to create that role model that I didnt have growing up. Everywhere we look, its about getting lighter, getting thinner, and meeting an unrealistic standard of beauty that doesnt exist in the real world. I recall being in that husky section and looking at the ads for the other departments, wondering, Why cant I have abs? Why cant I have blonde hair? or Why cant I have blue eyes? I remember not knowing that who I was and how I looked was good enough. Now, I know that. I have a responsibility to share my body struggles with you all, to share the need for more diversity in the media and fashion industry. We all need representation of some kind.