- Princess Diana super-fan Renae Plant met Di twice and decided to preserve her memory
- She fell in love with the People’s Princess’s clothes as well as her and began buying up her wardrobe
- She’s remortgaged her house multiple times to buy Diana memorabilia and recently spent over $790K on Diana’s iconic Caring dress
- Now, she’s sharing Diana’s legacy through her amazing virtual Princess Diana Museum and raising money for children with her charity, the Princess and the Platypus Foundation
Aussie Renae Plant was such a big Princess Diana fan she splashed out $790,000 on one of Di’s most loved dresses.
Renae from Eumundi, Qld, fell in love with Diana – the People’s Princess – when she stayed up all night and watched her Royal wedding to then Prince Charles at St Paul’s Cathedral in 1981, aged just ten.
Just two years later, the cheeky schoolgirl headed to the nearby Yandina Ginger Factory on April 12, 1983, on a school trip to see Prince Charles and Princess Diana on their Australian tour.
Wagging lunch and roll call, Renae waited back to snap a photo of Di on a small camera. When the Princess came out of the factory. Renae was lucky enough to meet her
‘She shook my hand, and I was speechless,’ Renae told That’s Life!
After Diana walked on, Renae explained she sneaked under the barricade behind the security and ladies in a waiting.
A friend yelled out ‘she’s dropped something in the dirt.’ So Renae picked up a tiny clay platypus and ran to a police man to return it.
‘She must have dropped it to give it to you,’ the police officer told her and let her keep it.
Little did Renae, now 54, know it would be the start of her incredible Princess Diana collection.
And that 35 years later, she would begin a non-profit charity called The Princess & The Platypus Foundation, and in 2019, create a virtual Princess Diana Museum online to preserve Diana’s life and legacy.
The collection is one of the largest in the world, worth millions, with Renae reportedly remortgaging her LA home multiple times to pay for memorabilia.
‘She must have dropped it to give it to you’
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One of the first pieces Renae bought in 2014 was the Caroline Charles wool burgundy coat Diana wore while carrying Prince William at Aberdeen airport in 1982 for $200,000.
She also snapped up the incredible ice blue Versace dress Di was photographed in that appeared on the cover of Harper’s Bazaar in 1997 as a tribute after Diana died in August 1997 in a car crash with Dodi Al-Fayed in Paris, France.
That’s when it hit Renae – all of Diana’s personal items were scattered across the world.
Sure Diana deserved better Renae made it her mission to keep all these pieces in one place in the Princess Diana Museum online.
But before she started, she wrote to William and Harry to ask permission.
‘I wouldn’t be doing this right now if I didn’t have their blessing,’ she said.
Renae began the virtual Princess Diana Museum with her husband Livinio Stuyck in 2019 from LA, USA Showcasing over 2700 items and featuring over 600 of Diana’s letters, it tells Diana’s life story and her legacy.
Each item is photographed so it can be viewed at any time by anyone who joins The Princess Diana Museum.
‘Diana … was a ‘give’r – even before she met/married Charles.’ Renae tells tl!
‘She would give things to friends, people in need, and charities, so the majority of the collection are items she gifted others.’
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Renae splashed out $872,000 at the LA Princess Diana’s Style & A Royal Collection auction in July 2025 on Diana’s silk blue print ‘Caring dress’.
It was the very dress donned by Diana in January 1988 when lucky then 18-year-old Renae saw her again at St Andrew’s Cathedral.
At the time, she was on the way to Bondi Beach wearing a white boob tube top because it was so hot and stood on a milk crate.
Renae was shocked when Diana looked straight up at her and snapped a photo.
So when Renae bought the very dress Di had worn 37 years later, she fell to the floor at the auction, overwhelmed.
‘It was the very dress donned by Diana!’
Renae bought 30 items at the auction, including the honeymoon hat that she wore in Australia when she met former PM Bob Hawke.
Renae also nabbed the $600,000 ream silk crepe Catherine Walker evening gown known as the ‘Falcon Dress’ worn on Princess Diana’s 1986 Gulf Tour.
She founded the Princess & the Platypus Foundation non-profit charity to preserve Diana’s life and legacy, and help raise money for children’s charities. And even cowrote a Diana memoir, It’s All About the Hair– My Decade With Diana, H.R.H. Princess of Wales, with Diana’s hairdresser Richard Dalton.
Renae explains to tl! that Diana ‘touched millions globally and even 20-plus years after her death, I can think of no one who has the same positive effect on the world that Diana did during the short time she was alive.’
Get ready to see Renae’s incredible collection of memorabilia in the flesh from November, when the Princess Diana museum goes on a global tour and returns to Australia.
For more information visit For more info visit www.theprincessandtheplatypus.org
