Renae was 12 years old and living in Yandina in southern Queensland when she had a chance encounter that would set her on a life-changing journey to honour Princess Diana.
With her hair in braids and a lot of spunk, this cheeky schoolgirl decided to “nick off” and try and meet the most famous woman in Australia who was visiting a local ginger factory on what was her first ever royal tour in 1983.
MEETING DIANA
“I went where I wasn’t supposed to be,” Renae tells Woman’s Day.
“Princess Di came down the dirt path and I had a little pocket camera to take photos of her. She came out of the ginger factory and there were all these photographers, but she beelined straight towards me.”
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“She shook my hand, and I was speechless. It was like a moment in time. She waited for me to say something, but I just couldn’t. I was just so enamoured when I saw her. She was so beautiful.”
“There are no words to describe the moment you feel when you meet her, especially at such a young age.”
Brimming over with excitement, Renae snuck under a barricade to walk behind the security guards and ladies in waiting, hoping to get close to Princess Di, when the royal bride dropped a little clay platypus someone had given her.
“I picked it up and tried to return it to her. I ran over to the police and said, ‘Lady Di dropped this’. He looked at me, he looked at the black Rolls Royce they were getting into, and said, ‘she must have dropped this to give to you’.”
“That little, tiny platypus set me on a trajectory I could never have imagined.”
THE CARING DRESS
Fast forward 37 years and Renae now has one of the biggest collections of Princess Diana memorabilia in the world, worth “tens and tens of millions” – and now including the famous “Caring Dress” she wore on another Aussie royal tour five years later.
“We actually bought 30 items at the auction. We got the honeymoon hat that she wore three times in Australia – she met Bob Hawke in that hat! And the honeymoon shoes,” she says.
Renae also paid about $600,000 for a custom cream silk crepe embroidered evening gown designed by Catherine Walker, known as the ‘Falcon Dress” which Diana wore on her 1986 Gulf Tour.
Renae, who last week fell to the floor in delight when her bid secured the “Caring Dress” that Diana famously wore on many hospital visits, got to meet Diana a second time when she was in Sydney in 1988.
“I was not expecting to meet her. It was as hot as hell, and I was wearing a white boob tube on my way to Bondi Beach when she arrived at St Andrews Cathedral. I got a milk crate to stand on and I’m screaming ‘Lady Di, Lady Di’.
“She reached up and I have a photo of her looking straight into my eyes wearing that dress that we acquired yesterday. That’s why I broke down. I was shaking to my core yesterday.”
Renae, 54, who fell in love with Diana after saying up all night to watch her wedding to Prince Charles at St Paul’s Cathedral in 1981, says the purchase was even more poignant given that Diana would have celebrated her 64th birthday today. (July 1, 1961)
“When she died, I was so gutted,” she says, explaining that as a Diana superfan she soon felt her idol was being “whitewashed from history to make way for Camilla and Charles to be accepted”.
It inspired her to start collecting and in 2014 she got serious, spending $200,000 buying on a burgundy Caroline Charles wool dress coat, Diana was photographed wearing while carrying a baby Prince William on her hip.
DIANA’S LEGACY
Since then, Renae and her Spanish-born husband, Livinio Stuyck, have mortgaged their Los Angeles home three times to keep buying famous items from Diana’s wardrobe and now run The Princess Diana Museum.
This collection of some 2730 items, includes a 1991 Versace dress Diana wore for a cover shoot with Harper’s Bazaar and diamond and pearl earrings which Queen Elizabeth gifted to Diana.
“Before I even started doing the Princess Diana Museum I wrote to William and Harry in 2015, and I would not be doing what I do right now if I didn’t have their blessing,” she says.
The museum which currently operates as a virtual museum with fans able to view it online, will tour the entire collection around the world next year to raise money for the non-profit they now run called the Princess and Platypus Foundation.
Renae says Prince William also thanked her for honouring his mum’s legacy in It’s All About the Hair, My Decade With Diana Princess of Wales, a memoir she co-wrote with Diana’s longtime hairdresser, Richard Dalton.
“I feel so blessed and honoured to be able to preserve her legacy,” she says.
“That’s why I was so overwhelmed when we got the ‘Caring Dress’. It represents everything she stood for – her humanitarianism, kindness and compassion. It symbolises everything.
“I truly believe Diana was looking over us yesterday. She knew those pieces had to end up in the Princess Diana Museum. Angels were looking over me yesterday and I know she was one of them for sure.”
OUTFITS OF AN ICON
A few of Diana’s most memorable ensembles went under the hammer at an auction in LA last week.
BLUE VERSACE DRESS – SOLD FOR $346,000
Diana met Gianni Versace after she divorced Charles and he quickly ushered in a new style for the princess.
The pair remained close friends until Gianni was murdered just one month before Diana’s own death in 1997.
RED SKI SUIT – SOLD FOR $495,000
Diana was photographed in this red nylon ski suit numerous times between 1985 and 1992 while holidaying in Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Austria.
It has become on of Diana’s style trademarks.
BLACK TAFFETA DRESS
This black frock was created by Elizabeth Emanuel and optioned for Diana’s first appearance following her engagement to Charles.
Elizabeth later went on to design Diana’s wedding dress.
