We entered the new year with a bang: A brand-spanking-new project for Devine, part of Integration 3, which we’re making for MoMu Antwerp. If you didn’t already know, it is the Fashion Museum in Antwerp (Mode Museum in Dutch, hence MoMu). Integration 3 is about bringing an immersive storytelling experience to the masses, in true Devine fashion, and this was no exception!
Let’s go back a stitch
Honestly, when I found out about the client… I was immediately dismayed. I was never into fashion, or at least I thought it was one of those things that I would never bother thinking too much about. One of my grandmothers was a seamstress, and a good one at that. I have an aunt with a successful clothing brand back home, who designed my wedding outfits, but I basically had no important input on them, trusting her vision. And growing up, most of my schools required uniforms, and I never really tried to alter them within the bounds of the uniform rules, the way some cooler kids do. Besides, for almost my entire childhood and part of my adult life, my mom chose my clothes. I remember her being exasperated with the choices I make, but Mom, you chose these pieces for me; you only have yourself to blame! I kid, I kid…
Anyway to say I was unenthused is an understatement. I think I let out an audible groan of dismay when I heard the client name.
And for WHAT, Dear Reader?! I assure you, give me enough material and I gain some passion for the topic! I should know myself better by now, sheesh.
Discovering a fashion TITAN
We had 3 designers to choose from, which were Christian Dior (early days, i.e. the namesake), Dirk Bikkembergs, and Walter Van Beirendonck. I only knew one of those names, and I knew immediately that it wasn’t for me. So I looked into the other two.
First impression: Great. One’s a sporty designer and one’s a BDSM designer. Christian Dior was looking more appealing by the second.
If there’s anything I dislike more than fashion, it’s sports. I am unnaturally horrible at sports; like cursed-level bad. I have 2 left feet, 2 right hands, and basically no stamina whatsoever. My knees have been bust since I was a child, I get asthma attacks just thinking about jogging, and I will - without fail- come last at any running-based event. The last time I was forced to do an exercise within a group, I ended up almost passing out while crying breahtlessly. We were in a military base for military medicine (yes I had that as a course) and I think the army dude did not expect someone so inept to be under his supervision. Luckily we weren’t military, so he pulled back a little bit and wasn’t super tough on me, but I swear he would have kicked me off the course if he could.
I digress. This is a very roundabout way to say that Meneer Bikkembergs was off my list almost immediately, through no fault of his own.
So I looked into Walter Van Beirendonck. The moment I read that he was into sci-fi, coupled with the fact that I had no interest in the other two designers, I was sold. What I didn’t know was how famous he is in the avantgarde fashion world, and that 90% of the other students also went for him. The other 9.9% chose Dior. I have yet to find someone who chose Dirk Bikkembergs, alloting the 0.1% just for uncertainty.
And pretty darn soon I realize how wrong I was with my initial assessment of Walter Van Beirendonck. I’ll refer to him as Walter from now on.
Despite my initial impression, Walter turned out to be more than just a “BDSM designer”. He appears soft-spoken, thoughtful, detail-oriented, and apparently was also a great teacher. He headed the Fashion Department of the Royal Art Academy in Antwerp, his alma mater, a few years after graduating there himself; he only stopped because he was forced to, as he was above retirement age. And since the 80s, he has been tirelessly making collections almost every fashion season until now. Now that is someone with passion for fashion.
I was easily enamored by his work ethic and his messages. How could I not, when he approaches many of his designs with such childlike wonder and hope for the world? I decided to take one of his interests - the world of sci-fi - and use that as the angle for my one-pager for him.
That was how Decoding W.A.L.T. came to be.
The Process
Ever heard of the following saying?
“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”
— Abraham Lincoln (probably).
Well that’s me with design and research when I have to do a website for a topic I do not already know.
In an ideal world, the three (!!!) weeks we had to research, design, and code a fully responsive website would be spent in a mostly-linear process of research -> design -> development.
I have long ago discovered that this is not the way I work. As long as the feel of the content and elements do not sit right with me, I will continue pursuing other avenues and refusing to budge on a certain topic, while still starting other topics, to avoid wasting time. Some call this perfectionism.
I call it being mulish.
My process is more roundabout. Or roller coaster-y. The design and research stages NEVER leave, as far as I’m concerned — at least, not with a project this short. I will progress with the steps, i.e. research to design to development, but only to keep myself moving on the conventional progress map. I would still be doing iterations on the design or copywriting of a prior section, and researching new content for them, as long as I have the inspiration and the time.
As a result, I was still doing last-minute changes to my website a few hours before deadline simply because I discovered something that I found to be more interesting. A better angle. A better interaction idea. A better quote, better picture… You get the drift. But I am convinced the page is all the better for it.
Would it have met more marking criterias if I just stuck to the same words and designs, and didn’t tweak aspects most people probably wouldn’t even notice? Probably.
Did I find it worth my time to optimize all images to be responsive instead of working on that new angle I thought of in the last few hours? Hell no.
In an ideal world I would be able to do both. In an ideal world, this wouldn’t take 3 weeks, one of which was spent recovering from an illness. But I would rather feel good about the site and lose some marks, than gain some marks at the cost of feeling off about the site.
This is a major weakness of mine. Why am I telling you this? Who the heck knows!
In short, I fell in love with Walter. And in my head, I wanted his messages to come through the best way possible. The site appears responsive, works on most devices well, and if there are a few images I had yet to make responsive enough to pass the linter… Well, I could do that once the marks were released. Most people wouldn’t notice.
Sometimes you have to prioritize things. Often times, it’s a gut feeling.
What’s Next
Listen, there is a reason this is in my Blogs and not my Works. This is me talking about my thoughts and feelings through this project. I will hopefully make a dedicated post about this to showcase in my Works, because hey, I am rather proud of it, but we shall see how we fare once the marks come out 🤷🏻♀️
Posted on January 28, 2026 at 11:55 PM