Two perspectives, a thousand ideas
We draw koinobori the way we tell stories. One world at a time.
It all begins with an idea. A colour glimpsed somewhere, a landscape that stayed with us, an old pattern, a memory from a journey. Sometimes, simply the wish to bring together shapes and colours that had never yet shared the same drawing.
From these inspirations, BCDG koinobori are born.
Each creation has its own character, its own story, its own signature. It joins one of our five worlds: Sea, Patterns, Hanami, Kaïro or Lands.
And when the wind joins in, the drawing leaves the page and comes to life in the air.
Japan, since childhood
As a child in Japan, I used to tie small koinobori to the end of bamboo poles. Japanese friends of my father had given them to me for Boys’ Day, on 5 May. I watched them dance in the wind, never imagining they would one day find their way back into my life.
Later, in Tokyo, I earned my first three dan in judo at the Kodokan. For each one, forty-five days of summer training, five hours of judo a day. A test of the mind as much as of the body. You had to hold on. And the next day, start again.
Over the years, the courage and perseverance that Japanese carp stand for have taken on a deeper meaning for me. Life has taken me from one continent to another, with its successes, its hardships and its fresh starts. I have known painful times. Yet they never took away my wish to keep going.
Today, Catherine and I draw our own koinobori. And in each of them I find a little of the child who watched his carp dance in the wind.
Life took a long detour to bring me back to them.
Alain
Simulated setting
Simulated settingDrawing, imagining, starting again
Sometimes we start from a very precise idea. Other times, it all begins with a colour, a silhouette, a few lines.
We draw, we compare, we change our minds. A pattern takes up too much room, a colour cannot find its right shade, a composition lacks balance. So we take up the drawing again.
Our inspirations are many. Japan, of course, but also the sea, landscapes, cultures, the simplest shapes as well as the most unexpected ones.
We like a koinobori to be recognisable at first glance, even from afar. Its colours to find their place in the sky. Its design to keep its character as it comes alive in the wind.
Each creation is the result of these choices, these discussions and the way we look at drawing together.
And sometimes, the best decision is simply to take a detail away.
The BCDG signature
Every koinobori we create bears the BCDG signature.
It is discreet, but it is there.
It is not a promise of rarity. The same design can enjoy a long life and travel very far.
This signature simply says that it was born of our imagination, our research and our choices.
An original design, with a character of its own.
Simulated setting
Simulated settingCatherine and Alain
We do not always have the same ideas, nor necessarily the same tastes. And that is a good thing.
We each bring our own eye, our inspirations, our sense of colour and form. We imagine designs, compare our ideas, refine the drawings. Sometimes we disagree. That too is part of the pleasure of creating together.
Our paths and sensibilities are different, but we share a taste for beautiful things, for cultures that meet and for stories worth telling.
We hope you will take as much pleasure in looking at our koinobori as we take in imagining them.
Catherine and Alain
