Alice Mary Partington is a phygital fashion designer and multi-disciplinary artist based in London, UK. Her graduate collection, Unravelling the Mask, is a personal exploration of struggling with the cognitive dissonance of ingrained neurodivergent masking, and using perfectionism as a coping mechanism. Growing up as a carer for her AuDHD brother, Partington had to repress her own issues to protect him. Until her adult life, where she began to struggle and received her own diagnoses, Alice never understood why she felt so tense and uncertain all the time. Through many moments of identity crises growing up, she found it impossible to feel a comforting sense of authentic self, and questioned how much of her behaviour was born out of self protection and feeling responsible for everyone else’s wellbeing. This is a common experience for neurodivergent people, especially in women who are only diagnosed in adulthood; this complex experience of masking, and the journey of embracing neurodiversity, is the focus of the collection. This internalised pressure to mask and exist only through a lens of perfectionism can only be coped with for so long. The designer’s journey of acceptance and unlearning the survival mechanism of completely altering herself to avoid any sort of vulnerability is just at its earliest beginning, and this collection has unknowingly been her way of proving to herself that she doesn’t have to be alone in this all-consuming struggle anymore.
AWARDS
Exhibitor at the Zaha Hadid Foundation - Ravensbourne Fashion x Architecture 2026Exhibitor at the Exeter Charity Fashion Show - Ravensbourne Y2 Denim Group Project, 2026Dean's Choice Award Winner for Foundation Degree - Ravensbourne University 2023Highly Commended for Sibling of the Year Award - Autism Hero Awards 2019Award Winner for IB Art - Bexley Grammar School 2022
CONTACT
LinkedIn: Alice Mary Partington
Instagram: @alice.mary.partington
Email: [email protected]
Find Older Work Here
Intangible Recollection
Ravensbourne University x Zaha Hadid Foundation
Year 3 Term 1 Undergraduate Degree 2025BRIEF: Bridging the gap between architecture and fashion, create a fashion concept piece proposal for 'architecture of clothing'. Create either: an art piece of clothing for an exhibition space, a RTW piece for a retail space or shop front, or a bespoke piece for a private wardrobe. Your proposal must be a fashion item with a clearly defined muse or customer. Create either in 1/2 scale or digitally.CONCEPT:
Intangible Recollection is an art piece for a public exhibition space, inspired by the memories of artist Stephen Knapp as he created his light painting sculptures. About his work, Knapp states: “the fun of what I do with light, is that there is nothing in our visual memory that prepares us for what I’m doing” (Sierzputowski, 2016), and “what I am trying to do most of all here is challenge any traditional notion of perception.” (Sierzputowski, 2016). According to his website: ‘his lightpaintings make visible the light that surrounds us and transforms it into something physical yet inherently transcendental’ (Knapp, n.d.). Intangible Recollection takes this idea of exploring invisible beauty and applies it to the presence of windows in architectural structures. Alongside a secondary focus into the behaviours of light and the characteristics of refraction, my garment investigates the intrinsically overlooked beauty of glass, and how windows can be used as a point of visual inspiration for apparel creation. Linking to memories, Intangible Recollection creates an artistic statement on childlike curiosity of the senses by elevating the translucence of glass and looking into the minutia of luminance as it bends through this ubiquitous architectural material.Intangible Recollection was exhibited at the Zaha Hadid Foundation in London in early February 2026.
PORTFOLIO:
Secondary sources cited, all the rest is my own work & images.
RESOLVED OUTCOME:
The Tailor of Time
BFC x British Library x Paolo Carzana Competition
Year 3 Term 1 Undergraduate Degree 2025BRIEF: Create 'the last garment on Earth' with three research points, including ones from the British Library. Submit a portfolio including research, design development, lineup, 2 fashion illustrations, colour & fabric and a toile or toile in progress.RESEARCH POINTS: For my concept I explored historical depictions of clocks, decorative pages in vintage books, and sculptural friezes & artworks from Ancient Rome.CONCEPT:
The Tailor of Time is a collection set at the end of the world where time has broken down. Reality becomes malleable as time moves out of sync, chronology is non-linear, and moments collide. Each garment examines different aspects of the garment creation process as time moulds them into garments with a new perspective on clothing. One garment has a multitude of collars, another of sleeves, creating the impression of deciding the placement of features on a garment. A few of the garments are created entirely out of ½ scale blocks, as if shifted back to their pattern state.
PORTFOLIO/OUTCOME:
Secondary sources cited, all the rest is my own work & images.
Environmental Mould
Ravensbourne University x Harris Tweed Competition
Year 3 Term 2 Undergraduate Degree 2026BRIEF: Create an Autumn/Winter 6 outfit lineup and outfit design proposal with the main fabrications being of Harris Tweed fabrics.CONCEPT:
Environmental Mould is a woollen streetwear collection inspired by the architectural decay and natural floral growth around my local area. This project interrogates how spaces are weathered by being lived in and exposed to the elements, and the unseen beauty found within the decay, grime, and creeping growth. Built on a foundation of observational photography, a multitude of natural textures were examined before focusing solely on a single wooden fence covered in bright green algae that I've walked past everyday for the past two decades. This gradual texture is translated into inspired embroidery and grows over each piece, with pleating motifs emulating the shapely panels in the wooden fence. The silhouettes in this collection were inspired by research into oversized proportion in stylised illustration, as well as supported by historical research into both the 70s & 80s New York hip hop scene and streetwear trends from my childhood in the early 2000s. Environmental Mould has an underlying focus on the impact of change and how this presents visually in both people and environment; this can be seen in the visual language of characterised proportion, the growing algae motifs and the nods to my personal history.
PORTFOLIO:
Secondary sources cited, all the rest is my own work & images.
DIGITAL TOILE:
