My Story

My career began on the stage. I've always been drawn to crafting ideas and living stories in ways that truly resonate with an audience:

I spent a decade as an elite professional ballerina, living and performing all over the world. I honed my voice and refined my technique while developing exceptional discipline, output, and operational versatility. Dance taught me to balance art and humanity of the process with strategic, functional focus. I learnt how to lead myself through challenging landscapes.

Maybe it’s because I’ve always had a strong creative curiosity, and a deep desire to engage with culture, that my work evolved naturally through craft, design, entrepreneurship, and creative leadership.

…I was never ‘only dancing’.

Over the past 17 years, I’ve built a body of work that bridges art and e-commerce:

From founding a nature-inspired e-commerce dancewear brand at 19 (bootstrapped from a £20 note), which I ran for 17 years, to leading digital creative for heritage brands and designing immersive, community-focused workshops and experiences for international spaces of excellence. I’ve shaped global brand identities with design that has palpably carried cultural weight, while receiving funding to create art and research exploring our shared, contemporary humanity.

While my work spans disciplines, the constant thread is care — for story, for culture, and for impact.

My craft lies in lived creativity. I love to learn, to lean into the awe of the unknown, and to explore through play and experimentation. I’m energised by imagining fresh concepts and shaping the strategies that bring them to life — blending authentic storytelling, meaningful audience engagement, with tangible outcomes.

Whether I’m leading teams or working independently, I bring cross-disciplinary thinking, strong visual communication, strategic insight, and emotional intelligence to everything I do.

At the heart of it all is a belief in meaningful creativity -supporting ideas and products that shape culture,  challenge systems, and always ask: how could this be better -for people and for the planet?

Thank you for taking a moment to read about my work

Please do get in touch if you have an idea to explore,

An Anecdote


For the amusement of myself and my colleagues I used to sew tiny mice out of my leather pointe shoe scraps side-stage in the theatre. My work ended up getting noticed by Jellycat Toys. I freelanced for them as a creative designer for four years and ideated and designed their most successful concept of all time: the Amuseables. Of course, I also designed ballerinas for them, as I still was one.

Some Spaces

The Royal Opera House, Barbican, Southbank Centre, UK 

Deutsche Oper, Komische Oper, Schiller Theatre, Germany

Bunka Kaikan, Japan. 

Cultural Centre, Hong Kong. 

Cirko, Finland.

Select Clients

Employers, clients and brand collaborations in-house, and otherwise. Creative contributions across private, public spaces.

Jelly Cat, Freed of London, BBC, NHS, Royal Opera House, Royal Academy of Dance, Kinetic Letters, Norn, In Focus Media, Taschen, Carry on Publishing, Jo Malone, Loreal, Lillet, Lulu Lemon, Vichy, Adidas, Palias, Bally, O’Pioneers, Hiro Robtics, Bose, Osteo-path, SLC, Edinburgh Fringe, Makeshift Company, Hamilton Cristou Productions, Southbank Centre, Agit Cirk, Staatsballett Berlin, Northern Ballet, Hong Kong Ballet, Joffrey Ballet, Harvard Art Lab

Residencies

Harvard University: ArtLab, Norn Berlin

Shop-able products

Since closing my online store (March 2025) DBA products are no longer available designedbyalice.co.uk but you can probably still finds pieces in stores in Korea, Japan, China, Canada and the UK

My work for Jelly Cat toys can be found online and in stores internationally.

Press

Vogue Italia, Fjord review, Danza danza, Southbank centre, YLE news, Clash mag