Ryan Gosling is taking things chill. Following the release of The Fall Guy in May and the yearlong Barbie press offensive, the Canadian actor is treating himself to a few well-deserved months off. We get it! Because even when you’re one of the hottest guys in Hollywood, you still need a bit of R&R every now and then.
Over the weekend, the Gosling-Mendes clan jetted off to Paris for the Olympics. And while the Blade Runner 2049 star could’ve simply packed one of his many baseball caps, he decided to go all-out on the merch table instead. And with a solid crop of official produce, everyone should allow for some extra baggage to bring back some Paris grails.
On Sunday, the Oscar nominee and his fam were spotted on the stands of the equestrian dressage finals. Up top, he went all dadcore with a red plaid flannel, a white tank, and some khaki chinos. But it was the white cap with an embroidered “Paris 2024” that really set things off—especially given the inclusion of NBC’s rainbow peacock logo, which lent the whole thing a bit of a throwback ’90s feel.
A few hours later, Gosling popped up at the gymnastic finals in another Olympics cap. This one came in green and featured a super clean five-panel design. The world-famous rings are embroidered across the front, and along the left-hand side, there was a swoopy lil logo you might not be all that familiar with. That’s because this was actually made by Anta—the Chinese sportswear giant that sponsors NBA stars like Kyrie Irving and Klay Thompson.
Back in May, GQ‘s very own Samuel Hine wrote: “It’s hard to avoid the feeling that all of the merch we’ve collected doesn’t add up to much more than a fuzzy bicoastal identity. When everything became merch, what did any of it mean?” He argued that the merch era was officially over. But Ryan Gosling—the guy who made the Drive jacket a must-have piece for dudely cinephiles everywhere—knows good, solid merch when he sees it. And he’s not ready to give up on it yet.
This story originally appeared on British GQ with the title ‘This weekend, Ryan Gosling merched out hard at the Olympics’