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“It’s been a marathon,” says Stéphane Ashpool. Following almost two years of development with Le Coq Sportif, the Parisian artistic director in charge of the French Olympic and Paralympic team uniforms for this year’s Paris Games today reveals his designs.
The gallery here contains only a small fraction of Ashpool and Le Coq Sportif’s national offer. Their garments, footwear and accessories will outfit around 560 Olympic and 280 Paralympic athletes, plus around 2,400 other coaches and squad support staff. In all, around 150,000 items will be delivered, 85,000 of them for competition and 65,000 to be worn in the Olympic Village and during podium ceremonies. Performance-wise, Ashpool and Le Coq Sportif have developed bespoke designs for 40 different Olympic and 24 Paralympic disciplines. A selection of pieces also goes on sale to the public today.
One particular point of pride for Ashpool, who founded brand Pigalle in 2008 in honour of his own Paris neighbourhood, is that the vast majority of his Olympics designs were made in France. Some pieces assembled in Morocco and Portugal excepted, the majority of product was manufactured at Le Coq Sportif’s factories in Romilly-sur-Seine. For the first time in history, the Judogi kimonos worn by the French Judo team will be made from French-woven fabric, and assembled in France: something that had to be approved by the sport’s Japanese regulators.
“We’ve been fighting to produce locally,” he explains, adding: “The challenge to make this happen in and around France, and to be able to dress and equip specific sports ranging from cycling to fencing to skateboarding to kayak and canoe, has been huge. I’m very proud that we have been able to achieve it.”
The first thing he did upon landing the job was meet with a wide group of the country’s athletes and ask them what their ideal Olympic apparel might look like. “They all said the same thing: ‘We want to look good, we want to look fresh, and we want to look cool. Yes we want to look French, but we don’t want to be a walking flag. If we feel we look good, that will boost our confidence — and this in turn will maximise our performance.’” Ashpool took them at their word, interpreting the French tricolore as a dégradé sum of its parts — “which also reflects the diversity of our country” — and tweaking the conventional brilliant white into a creamier, off-white variation.
To respect every sport’s individual technical demands and cultural attributes, Ashpool worked to approach each of them on a case-by-case basis. For those such as skateboarding and breakdancing (a new sport for Paris 2024), he says: “We have only very few athletes so some of the stuff was made semi-bespoke for them.” More expressive sports like rhythmic gymnastics and figure skating on the other hand, left room for Ashpool to place extra emphasis on decoration and look.
He adds: “What I feel most about this project is a sense of honour to be contributing something to the experience of France’s athletes. The discipline they show to dedicate years of their life pursuing their training and improving their performance is total, and it all leads up to a critical moment that might last for only a few minutes, or even a few seconds. To play some part in that moment with Le Coq Sportif is something very special.”
The 2024 Paris Olympics opening ceremony will take place on 26 July on the Seine, where the French Olympians will wear outfits designed by LVMH brand Berluti. The games run until 11 August.
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