The Paris Olympics 2024 Phrygian Cap Has Turn into My Obsession

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

I learn concerning the mascots in my every 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 pink coloration is brilliant and harsh. Curious, I began following this uncommon stuffed toy. With out realizing it, the analysis has turn out to be an obsession. My eyes and curiosity carried me to incredible discoveries. My analysis took me to the story behind the design, the made in France versus made in China difficulty, 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 route 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 an emblem 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 here are two theories why they’re female: One, in the course of the French revolution, girls led the march to Versailles. Peacefully on this case, the 2 Phryges are main their tribe with one conviction: “sports activities can change every part”.

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 somewhat hot-headed”. The Olympic Phryge is “smaller, extra cautious, considerate, seductive and somewhat snooty”.

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

Two French toy corporations 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 the vast majority 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 material 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”. Realizing 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 trendy Turkey).

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

In the course of the interval of Enlightenment, the cap grew to become an emblem of human rights. In the course of the French Revolution, it took on the that means of “Liberty or Demise”. 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 a substitute 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 not less than two of his work on the Louvre Museum. Probably 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 Souvenirs

Inside 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 present, 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 major 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 (https://doudouetcompagnie.com/fr/catalogue/mascotte-officielle-paris-2024) et Compagnie and Gipsy Toys (https://www.gipsytoys.com/en/108-the-mascots-of-paris-2024).

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 emblem is utilizing neo-Artwork Nouveau typography, colours and design fashion. The brand will not 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 dimension bigger than regular for me. A girl had a mascot key chain dangling from her backpack. My coronary heart began racing. I imagine I’m catching Paris Olympic 2024 memento fever!