BBC Artist Kirstie MacCleod adjusts the sleeve of the red dress which is on a mannequin lit with spotlights. It is covered all over with embroidery of all colours, some are patterns, some are images, and some are sparkly. — Artist Kirstie MacCleod estimates there are between 1-1.5 million stitches on the dress, which took 10,000 hours of work

A red silk dress embroidered by 380 people in 51 countries over the course of 14 years has gone on display at Killerton House near Exeter.

The Red Dress Project, which saw 87 panels created and stitched together between 2009 and 2023, was begun by Somerset-based artist Kirstie MacCleod.

She said: “What I really love is that probably the women and men will not actually meet in person, but, through the dialogues on the dress, they are in conversation -they are connecting.”

It is the centrepiece of the National Trust property’s winter celebrations and is on display until 4 January.

Artist Kirstie MacCleod said about 65% of the embroiderers were vulnerable women who were living as refugees or recovering from addiction

A close up of a panel of the dress showing six doves embroidered in white thread. The doves have phrases in them including “the greatest wealth is to live content with little”, and “A winter in your country is better than a hundred springs away”. — Artist Kirstie MacCleod said about 65% of the embroiderers were vulnerable women who were living as refugees or recovering from addiction

The dress features work from 367 women and girls, 11 men and boys, and two non-binary people from countries all over the world.

Erina Sheholli Sinani, the leader of Sister Stitch, a project from Manchester Aid to Kosovo based in Podujeve, Kosovo, said: “We used embroidery as our voice and embroidered some birds and used white thread to symbolise peace.

“We are very honoured and happy to have been part of the red dress.”

Karen Lightfoot, who runs an embroidery shop in Brisbane, Australia, was one of the stitchers for the panel from Australia.

She put their panel on display in her shop so customers and members of the community could all join in. More than 23 people took part in making that panel.

“It gave us an opportunity to be part of something that was much bigger than us”, said Ms Lightfoot.

Shelley Tobin, costume curator at Killerton, said having the dress at the house was a “dream come true” and she “wanted to have the dress there for purely selfish reasons” because she had missed other opportunities to see it.

She said: “It doesn’t matter how many times you see it, you always find something new to admire… people have been coming from far afield just to see it.”

The dress has been entered into the Guinness Book of World Records as the “largest collaborative embroidery project on Earth”.