It’s been a rollercoaster year for Stade Français, and a few months ago there seemed a very good chance that we’d never look at another one of the Parisian club’s lightning bolt’d jersey with all the talk of merging with Racing 92 on the cards.
Thankfully, that didn’t happen, and so we have the pleasure of being able to appreciate the iconic, if very different, looks of both clubs still – and Stade are certainly not pulling their punches this season.
What we have this year is actually kinda classic by Stade standards – it’s got a classic button-up folding collar, the back of the jersey is just plain dark blue with a black strip down the spine.
Even on the front the motif is subtle (for a given value of subtle!) with dark blue lightning bolts on a lighter blue background, with the bolts accented in pink and electric blue. It’s actually almost restrained!
The away jersey is the same basic design as the home shirt, but of course it’s pink – because it wouldn’t be a Stade kit drop if there wasn’t a pink jersey, and in truth we think it works better than the home.
There’s less of a contrast between the printed motif on the front and the rest of the jersey, making the design feel a bit more tied together, and the like the white accents on the bolts, too.
There’s nothing wrong with either of these shirts – the basic design is nice, and we do like the return to a bit of classic-style collar, but on the whole there just seems to be something missing with these compared to previous years.
Stade shirts are always wild and eye-catching, but they usually at least feel coherent and balanced. These just feel a bit dull and a bit of mess – perhaps echoing the chaos that’s been going on in the board room?
Rugby Shirt Watch 
What colour number would they have on the back of the pink one?