Since the advent of gym class, black socks have been a ‘scarlet letter’ for geeks everywhere. Black socks worn with shorts are a blaring beacon for pale, scrawny legs. No ‘true athlete’ would  dare approach a court, field or track in anything but white hosiery.

It took a man’s man to finally make black socks cool. And not any jock could achieve this feat. Such a challenge requires one of the world’s strongest and most successful. After winning the Tour de France an unprecedented seven times, Lance Armstrong could make his ’09 comeback wearing a muumuu and scarf and still scare the shorts off his competitors. Much has been written in cycling blogs about this break in bicycle tradition, but it’s implications for the mainstream fashion world are immense. And sporting black socks  in the French countryside is not simply a Beaujolais and massage induced faux-pas. He also wore black in the 2009 Tour of California and Giro d’Italia. Fashion world take note!

Two months after the Tour of California wound through Southern California, blogger Jeff  Ircink reported that LA has already begun to embrace the new trend.

Update July 15th: Robin Williams ribs Lance for his black socks in this Livestrong video. In addition, Jeff Bean reports that Lance first sported black way back in 2004! Apparently it takes a major comeback to start a fashion revolution.