One guest on The Repair Shop  fought back the tears as he revealed the truth behind his late sister’s ‘precious’ dress – and the stunned BBC expert admitted that ‘it’s full of secrets’.

Ben Rowe appeared on Wednesday’s instalment of the BBC show to ask for the experts help on restoring a special piece of clothing. 

He turned up at the barn with a painting of a dress painted by his sister Lizzie, as well as the actual dress, and expert Rebecca Bissonnette was called over to investigate. 

Ben said of his sister: ‘She was a fantastic artist. Sadly, this dress, which went through her kind of life journey over 40 years, is now in rather, as you can see, a sorry state. 

‘It’s a skirt, but Lizzie always called it a dress. It was painted through the late 80s, 90s, and then it finished off. This one was done 2007.’ 

He continued: ‘Lizzie started life male and was male for 35 years. 

A The Repair Shop guest fought back the tears as he revealed the truth behind his late sister’s ‘precious’ dress 

Expert Rebecca Bissonnette helped restore the dress 

‘She went to university, studied fine art, had a partner, had a beautiful daughter called Ellie in 1980. 

‘But in the back of Lizzie’s mind, for a long time, there’d been a kind of question mark that was growing about her gender, and her fluidity within that gender.

‘Lizzie then started to transition more and more in the 1980s, and got more confident and more ᴀssertive about her desire to transition fully.’

Ben then explained that she had sadly died 10 weeks ago aged 68 after contracting Covid and pneumonia.

Lizzie saw the item of clothing as her ‘creative rock’ and that is why she painted it so many ways.

Ben told Rebecca that he wanted her to work her magic so that he could use it as centerpiece it in a posthumous show for Lizzie. 

Just before washing the dress, the expert said: ‘There’s a lot of secrets and details that I feel need to be retained, as it does represent Lizzie and it represents her art and her life.’

Later on in the episode Ben was reunited with the dress and couldn’t contain his emotion. 

Ben couldn’t believe his eyes when he was reunited with his late sister’s dress 

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Fighting back the tears, Ben said: ‘Oh wow. Wow.

‘I can see all the seamstress work you’ve done, it’s lovely.

‘What you realise about it is it’s actually much fuller and much, much bigger.’

He added: ‘It’s just lovely to see it back to its original state. 

‘It’s now ready for the next stage of its journey. 

‘It’s going to play centre stage in a posthumous exhibition in Newcastle.

‘But then the final destination of this, this needs to go Ellie. Also Ellie has a daughter. This can now continue down that family line.

‘The memories of Lizzie are going to keep rocking and rolling. 

‘I’ve looked for something positive out of this and you’ve given it to me, you know.’ 

Those watching at home were touched by the story.

One wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter: ‘What a wonderful brother.’

Another added: ‘This was a lovely story to hear. Well done. Beautiful fabric restoration.’

A third tweeted: ‘Oh gosh I’m tearing up.’

The Repair Shop airs on BBC One and is available to stream on iPlayer.