Private Collection: Los Angeles resident displays 800 items belonging to Princess Diana

Renae Plant believes she has assembled one of the largest private collections of Princess Diana’s belongings in the world.

Plant, a Los Angeles resident, started collecting in 2014 after visiting an auction where six of the late princess's dresses were up for sale. She had planned to invest in a local pizza restaurant but diverted her attention to the garments instead. Twelve years later, her vault holds more than 800 items, including dresses, accessories, and personal objects.

Plant has described the collection process as a mix of manifestation and financial sacrifice. She often bids at auction houses, sometimes against major institutions like Historic Royal Palaces. In 2025, she purchased the floral Belville Sassoon dress, known as the "caring dress," for $520,000. She credited a bidder number of 333 and a network glitch during the auction for her win. To finance the purchase, Plant and her husband, Livinio Stuyck, re-mortgaged their home. They took out additional equity in 2015 and 2025 to fund acquisitions, spending approximately $1.9 million in a single day last summer for 35 items, including a peach ostrich feather hat bought for $26,000.

Plant runs a local preschool in Los Angeles and handles most auction bidding after work or on weekends. She maintains the collection in climate-controlled storage, paying monthly subscription fees per item. The couple also operates an online museum where paid members can view the catalog. Plant stated that the high costs are manageable because she views the work as a mission to protect Diana's legacy. She founded The Princess & The Platypus Foundation in 2018 to support charities aligned with Diana’s philanthropic interests.

The collection is the centerpiece of an exhibition titled "The Princess Diana: Love, Life and Legacy. A Life of Giving," which opens Saturday at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in Simi Valley, California. Plant emptied her storage to fill the three-act showcase, which traces Diana’s life from childhood to her death in 1997. The display includes personal letters, baby dresses, and audio tape recorders. Nearly all items on view are from Plant's private collection, with the exception of a velvet gown worn by Diana at a 1985 White House dinner, which is on loan.

Plant also secured a record-breaking $1.14 million bid for a black sheep sweater, though she lost the item to another collector. She later acquired a second sweater from the same design. The exhibition will feature a black Azagury gown that Diana commissioned in 1997 but never wore. The dress had pins still attached when Plant acquired it. Plant said she could not afford to bid on the famous "revenge dress" coming to auction on December 5, which Sotheby’s estimates at $300,000, because she had already tapped her home equity. She plans to display a similar black Azagury design from her collection instead.

The exhibition marks the first public display of many of Plant's items. She noted that she prefers to focus on the historical value rather than the monetary price of the pieces. The collection remains accessible to paid members through her online platform while the physical items are on display in California.