Unique upcycled wedding dresses on display

Lotty Merry (R) wore the dress in memory of her late husband

More than 100 wedding dresses transformed by volunteers into ballgowns and evening dresses are now on display.

The project, curated by former Wells mayor Tanys Pullin, aims to promote well-being and help people deal with life events in a collective way.

"It's about people not being lonely. We're very inclusive, everybody matters and everybody can be involved," she said.

The Jailhouse Frock exhibition is currently showcasing 116 upcycled dresses at Shepton Mallet prison in Somerset.

Ms Pullin said she started the project to raise money for charity, after being inspired by The Red Dress by Kirsty, but has now become "completely addicted" to dresses.

People aged between 13 and 80 years old contributed to the project

More than 1,000 volunteers from the ages of 13-80 have come together to contribute to the project.

"Each dress has its own storyboard, it's a real community feel.

"I think this could be shown in other communities that could work together in a very positive way," Ms Pullin said.

Lisa Holman was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2022. She painted her white dress pink and decorated it with flowers.

Lisa Holman said transforming the dress was "a cathartic experience"

It has one black flower which symbolises her cancer.

The other flowers symbolise friends, she said, including those who "didn't know how to react or cope with it so they just fell over, so those are the ones that are going to the floor".

"It was really therapeutic and quite a cathartic experience," she added.

Ms Holman said it felt "surreal" to see the dress as part of the exhibition.

Another volunteer, Marjorie Wells, is a seamstress who is also known as the "transformer".

She has upcycled two dresses for the project, one of which is modelled on designs for Barbie dresses, as she and her daughter have about 200 dolls each.

The other dress is inspired by climate change and the effect of the sun.

One of Ms Wells' designs is inspired by a Barbie dress

As well as those who volunteered to transform the dresses, others gave up their time to model them.

Lotty Merry decided to walk out onto the catwalk on Saturday in a wedding dress in memory of her late husband.

He was given 12 months to live after being diagnosed with cancer 22 years ago, he died five months later.

This meant Ms Merry was unable to walk down the aisle in her wedding dress

"I wore it in hospital and we had two hours. I wanted to do the walking out in a wedding dress," the horse therapist said.

She added her husband would have been "cheering us on from the side".

The exhibition will run until the end of September.