The Paris Olympics 2024 Phrygian Cap Has Turn out to be My Obsession

Asking myself easy questions in regards to the Paris Olympics 2024 mascot step by step started a quest and have become my obsession. Does the Olympics 2024 mascot have a gender? Why are they brilliant purple and appear to be a stuffed Eiffel Tower? My in-depth analysis into these burning questions has been fruitful.

I learn in regards to the mascots in my day by day newspaper Le Parisien. My preliminary response when the 2 mascots had been unveiled in November 2022 was not very optimistic. Their design doesn’t strike me as elegant. The purple shade is brilliant and harsh. Curious, I began following this uncommon stuffed toy. With out realizing it, the analysis has change into an obsession. My eyes and curiosity carried me to improbable discoveries. My analysis took me to the story behind the design, the made in France versus made in China problem, antiquity historical past and unexplored sections of the Louvre, Carnavalet Museum, French artwork and the Bastille.

How I Carried out the Search

Two weeks after the mascot announcement I noticed a Phrygian cap on the bronze statue “Liberty” within the metro station Louvre-Rivoli. Stepping off the platform in Bastille station close to my residence, there was one other Phrygian cap. In truth, the tiles on the platform within the path of Vincennes has probably the most painted Phrygian caps in a single place.

Solutions to “what’s it?” got here from newspaper articles and browser searches. French revolutionaries and different revolutionaries wore it as a logo of liberty and freedom. In a novel’s chapter I’m studying, the cap is talked about when Lord John Gray dons a Phrygian cap in the course of the American Revolution.

The Story Behind the Mascot Design

Now extra on the preliminary query of gender from above. The mascots (in French mascotte, a female noun) are two “heroines” designated as leaders of a Phryges tribe. Listed below are two theories why they’re female: One, in the course of the French revolution, ladies led the march to Versailles. Peacefully on this case, the 2 Phryges are main their tribe with one conviction: “sports activities can change every little thing”.

One more reason may very well be the French phrase “mascotte”, which is a female noun. The Phryges tribe represents the varied video games within the Olympics. The Phryges personalities symbolize French societal variations. The Paralympic Phryge is “extroverted, party-going and just a little hot-headed”. The Olympic Phryge is “smaller, extra cautious, considerate, seductive and just a little snooty”.

Made in France vs. Made in China (Amount vs. High quality)

Two French toy firms obtained the manufacturing bid, Doudou et Compagnie and Gipsy Toys to fabricate the fluffy, stuffed Phrygian caps. Each had already moved their operations to China years in the past. Thus, on nearly all of the Phryges is written made in China on the label. For the Olympics, Doudou et Compagnie moved some manufacturing again to France to an deserted grocery store. They’re producing a restricted variety of the made in France Phryges in Brittany.

The looks and really feel is completely different between the plush toys. Within the made in France model, my fingers really feel the fur, which is fluffier, softer and longer. My eyes see the distinction within the glint within the Phryges’s eyes. They’ve extra element. The prosthesis differs between the 2 variations. On the Paralympics toy made in France the prothesis is plastic. Within the made in China model, the prothesis is fabric and the fur and the eyes are flatter.

Why the Phrygian Cap?

The Phrygian cap is a French image representing liberty and freedom with its beginnings in antiquity. Freed slaves in Roman antiquity wore the cap known as “pileus”. Figuring out that, I chanced that Greek antiquities on the Louvre can be an ideal spot to discover a Phrygian cap, which originated in Phrygia (a part of fashionable Turkey).

In a browser search of the Louvre, I discovered Athena standing underneath a dome Greek Antiquities part carrying a cap. The cap turned out to be a Corinthian helmet however I used to be in the suitable room. Inspecting the opposite statues in the identical room, I discovered the Trojan hero, Paris. He was carrying the Phrygian cap. Not an emancipated slave, he did, nevertheless, trigger the Trojan Struggle.

In the course of the interval of Enlightenment, the cap grew to become a logo of human rights. In the course of the French Revolution, it took on the that means of “Liberty or Loss of life”. The Metropolis of Paris’s Carnavalet Museum’s French Revolution part has quite a few cap examples in work, cash and sculptures. On one coin, French citizen Louis XVI wears the Phrygian cap. The apex is towards the again as an alternative of the entrance. The place of the apex is opposite to the norm.

As I transfer to the trendy period on the Louvre, Eugène Delacroix makes use of the cap in no less than two of his work on the Louvre Museum. Essentially the most well-known is “Liberty Main the Folks” painted for the July Revolution of 1830. An amazing number of souvenirs on the Louvre use “Liberty” as the principle topic.

Shopping for the Mascot Phrygian Cap

Throughout the first week of January 2024, many of the cabinets within the shops promoting the mascot souvenirs have been cleaned from the vacations. As of at this time, only some Olympic collector cash and one tote bag exist at La Poste (the French submit workplace) in my Bastille neighborhood. The shops I revisited (Galeries Lafayette and the Paris Vacationer Workplace) will replenish their cabinets. Two essential official shops at the moment are open at Les Halles and the Carrousel du Louvre (the biggest). Souvenirs can be found on-line at an olympic store in addition to on Doudou et Compagnie et Compagnie and Gipsy Toys.

Paris Olympics 1900 and 1924

That is the primary Paris Olympics with not one, however two mascots. After two years of branding and design work, Tony Estanguet, President of the Paris 2024 Organising Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Video games and three-time Olympic champion unveiled the mascots in November 2023. As a chunk of trivia, Paris 1924 had the primary Olympic village to accommodate and feed athletes.

Olympic cities solely started the usage of designing a mascot, normally an animal, in 1968. The Paris Olympics of 1900 and 1924 had no mascot. In a nod to the 1924 Paris Olympics, the 2024 brand is utilizing neo-Artwork Nouveau typography, colours and design model. The brand shouldn’t be the mascot however three symbols of the French Olympics: the gold medal, Marianne and the flame.

The Olympic memento fever is beginning. I purchased a tee shirt at Galeries Lafayette in a measurement bigger than regular for me. A girl had a mascot key chain dangling from her backpack. My coronary heart began racing. I consider I’m catching Paris Olympic 2024 memento fever!