Renae Plant empties 800-piece Princess Diana collection for Reagan Library exhibit

Renae Plant is emptying her home to ship more than 800 dresses, accessories, and objects to California. The collection, which she has spent 12 years assembling, will open at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum on Saturday. The exhibit, titled "The Princess Diana: Love, Life and Legacy," traces the late princess’s life from childhood to her death in 1997. Plant, who has owned and directed the Camelot Kids Preschool in Los Angeles since 2008, stated that the show represents the culmination of her lifelong mission to preserve Diana’s history.

Plant’s collecting began in 2014 after a friend invited her to view six of Diana’s dresses at Julien’s Auctions in Los Angeles. She purchased her first piece that day, a decision she credits with altering her life’s trajectory. "That was a miracle," Plant said. "Because any day later and that would have gone in a different direction." Her initial connection to the royal family dates back to 1983, when a 12-year-old Plant in Queensland, Australia, picked up a small clay platypus that Diana had dropped. She founded The Princess & The Platypus Foundation in 2018 to support charities aligned with Diana’s philanthropic work.

The financial cost of the collection has required substantial personal sacrifice. Plant and her husband, Livinio Stuyck, have re-mortgaged their home multiple times to fund acquisitions. In 2015, they tapped their equity to buy a studded Atelier Versace gown for $200,000. They did so again in 2025. That additional line of credit allowed Plant to purchase the vivid floral Belleville Sassoon "caring dress" for $520,000 at auction. She also bought a peach-colored ostrich feather hat Diana wore on her honeymoon for $26,000. The couple spent approximately $1.9 million on that single day.

Plant attributes her success in auctions to a mix of luck and divine intervention. She cited a network issue during the 2025 sale that prevented the underbidder from matching her price on the Belleville Sassoon dress. Her assigned bidder number was 333, which she considers an angel number. However, she admitted her husband is not the ideal bidding partner. She lost a 1981 Warm & Wonderful black sheep sweater because Stuyck pressed the wrong buttons; that piece sold for a record $1.14 million. Plant later acquired the second of the two matching knits.

The upcoming exhibition features nearly every item in Plant’s private vault. This includes personal letters, baby dresses, tape recorders used for voice memos, and favorite childhood records by ABBA, Queen, and Elton John. One exception is a velvet gown Diana wore to a 1985 White House dinner, which is rented for the show. That dress will be displayed next to Nancy Reagan’s ivory James Galanos gown.

Plant maintains her day job at the preschool and conducts her collecting efforts in the evenings and on weekends. The couple pays for climate-controlled storage to preserve the items. The collection is currently cataloged in an online museum for paid members. Plant declined to provide a total estimated value for the archive, preferring to focus on the items' historical significance.

On December 5, Sotheby’s New York will auction Diana’s famous "revenge dress," a Christina Stambolian gown with an estimated price of $300,000. Plant said she cannot afford the piece because she has already exhausted her mortgage equity. "It does break my heart when I’m not able to," she said. Instead, the Reagan Library will showcase a different black Azagury gown that Diana commissioned but never wore. Plant noted that pins are still in the back of that dress, which underwent its final fitting days before Diana’s death in August 1997.