Stade Français Paris is the rugby section of the historic French multi-sport club Stade Français, based in the French capital. The club’s visual identity is built around a pink and blue palette and a crest featuring three lightning bolts, elements that have evolved through several documented redesigns.
Design and History
The club’s current crest dates from May 2018, when it was unveiled as part of a presentation the club called its “(R)évolution” (Revolution). The redesign was introduced to mark a transition and “write a new chapter” in the club’s history, described by the club as “a symbol anchored in history but endowed with a touch of modernity.” The principal change was the addition of the word “PARIS” to the logo, reinforcing the club’s claim to be the capital’s club. The three white lightning bolts were retained, and pink remained the main color.[1][2][3]
The 2018 crest was presented at a Jean-Bouin stadium event on May 16, 2018, twenty years after the club’s first professional-era championship title. The club’s general director at the time, Fabien Grobon, said the new logo was “both a tribute to the prestigious past of the Club and a call to write a new page of our common history.”[2][1]
An earlier documented change came in 2003, when the mention of “CASG”, the entity that merged with Stade Français in 1995, disappeared from the club’s visual identity.[4]
The lightning bolt symbol itself predates the pink era. The three symmetrical lightning bolts were maintained as the club’s symbol when the social colors changed to pink and blue under the presidency of Max Guazzini in the 1990s.[5]
Meaning and Symbolism
The pink color, now inseparable from the club’s identity, originated in 2005. On September 6, 2005, away at Perpignan, Stade Français surprised the rugby world by playing in pink shirts. The idea came from then-president Max Guazzini, who had originally sought a silver away kit but found the result unsatisfactory. He proposed pink instead, and the players chose to debut the shirt earlier than planned. The pink jersey became the club’s emblem, and the players became known as the “Soldats Roses” (Pink Soldiers).[6][7]
The traditional colors of Stade Français are blue and red, while the CASG colors were sky blue, white and navy blue. The club has alternated since 2006 between navy blue kits with pink trim, pink and blue combinations, and white, navy and pink sets.[8]
Typography and Design
In the 2018 redesign, the club stopped spelling out its full name on the crest, using instead the initials “SF” above the word “PARIS”. This was compared by observers to Paris Saint-Germain’s earlier decision to de-emphasize “Saint-Germain” in its own badge.[2]
For the club’s 140th anniversary in 2023, special editions of the crest were produced in gold, with the lightning bolts accompanied by the dates “1883-2023”.[9][10]
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