Live strong

The big fashion statement of the week was all about six-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong. People all over the city were sporting Big Bird yellow rubber band bracelets with his mantra, “LIVE STRONG,” on them. Available at local Foot Locker retailers for $1 a pop, the proceeds from sales of the yellow sports bracelets go toward the Lance Armstrong Foundation. The goal is to raise $5 million for people living with cancer and by the looks of things here in Indianapolis, it’s highly likely that the LAF will surpass that goal. The bracelets are also available at the Nike Web site, www.nike.com/wearyellow/, and the Lance Armstrong Foundation Web site, www.laf.org.

Lance’s favorite color can’t be anything other than yellow. It’s the jersey color for the overall classification winner on the Tour. Whoever has the lowest racing time takes the yellow and that certain special someone was Lance again this year, sailing down the Champs-Elysees, a whirling yellow blur, in Paris on Sunday, July 25. The yellow jersey is all that matters.

Hey, and yellow was reportedly the “in” color for summer girly looks, too, but you didn’t see many canary yellow dresses, flippy minis, flip flops or anything else for that matter. Here in our city, trendy unfortunately means safe in unaccessorized basic beige, drab denim and tidy white.

The young woman in the photo, taken at the RCA Championships finals match where Andy Roddick defeated Nicolas Kiefer for the championship on Sunday, got her accessories right — right down to her “Live Strong” bracelet. She stacked hers with other playful bangles (including a colorful ponytail holder acting as a bracelet) that added a fun element of style to her look. The yellow bands littered the audience’s wrists at the event and bounced sunshine off of them almost like a mirror. Hard to ignore, inexpensive, durable, a fund-raiser, cool, gimmicky with a universal appeal, the Lance Armstrong “Live Strong” bracelet can be worn by guys as macho as Lance himself.