Princess Diana’s Black Sheep Sweater Has a Secret—and Diana Museum Founder Renae Plant Is Sharing it With the World

Until now, Renae Plant’s incredible collection of Princess Diana’s fashion and personal belongings has lived in the online Princess Diana Museum, but fans can finally view them in person. Diana: Love Life Legacy—A Life of Giving opened November 7 at the Ronald Reagan Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in Simi Valley, California, with hundreds of items from Plant’s collection on display—including Diana’s iconic black sheep sweater.

Everything from Diana’s baby dresses and childhood toys to her evening gowns and sweatshirts are included in the exhibit, with 740 of the 750 pieces being shown in public for the first time ever.

Speaking to Marie Claire at a press preview for the event last week, Plant said the display barely scratches the surface of what’s in her climate-controlled storage bays. “Our collection is 2,700 pieces, and there’s only 750 on display right now. There’s still a lot more I can do,” she shared.

One of the most recognizable pieces in the exhibit is Warm & Wonderful's black sheep sweater, and Plant explained that the wool pullover that she owns was actually the second one Diana wore. “Buckingham Palace sent the first sweater back that she wore in 1981, and it had a little hole in one of the sleeves,” she told members of the press as the sheep sweater was being installed into the museum.

“They like to think that her engagement ring got snagged on the corner and so they sent her a replacement sweater, and this here is the replacement sweater,” Plant said. Although she missed out on the original, damaged sweater—which broke auction records when it sold for $1.14 million in 2023—Plant was later able to acquire version two by a stroke of luck.

"Sotheby's reached out three months after that sale and we acquired it privately directly—it didn't go for auction," she says of the second sweater. "Diana had gifted it to a friend, it was in a box under their bed for over 30 years."

All of the items in the exhibition are owned by Plant, with the exception of one: the famous blue velvet “Travolta Dress.” Diana wore the ruched, off-the-shoulder Victor Edelstein gown while dancing with John Travolta at a White House banquet with the Reagans almost exactly 41 years ago—November 9, 1985. The gown is on loan from Historic Royal Palaces, and Anne-Marie Britton, a textile conservator from the organization, traveled with the historic dress to California.

“She’s very generously loaned to us for some of our exhibitions and she reached out and the library as well, so it was a real honor to bring the dress over to America so it could be reunited with Nancy Reagan who was instrumental in creating this most iconic moment,” Britton told Marie Claire of Plant.

The Travolta gown is displayed next to the beaded white dress that Mrs. Reagan wore the same night, with photos of the banquet and Diana’s dance with the Grease star arranged on the wall nearby.

The conservator explains that it was a “slightly nerve-wrecking moment” making sure the dress—which travels along with its mannequin in a special dress box and a “bespoke crate”—safely got on the plane. However, it was worth it to see “another iconic moment, making history again” in a new location, Britton said.

Another standout piece is Diana’s “Caring Dress,” which Plant won at auction in 2025 for $520,000. The colorful Bellville Sassoon piece—which Diana often wore to hospitals and while meeting children—has an especially personal connection to Plant. The museum curator was just a child when she met Diana in Australia in 1988, and the princess was wearing the very same dress that Plant now owns.

“That was the one I fell on the floor for. 14.5 million views,” she told Marie Claire with a laugh, referring to the viral video of her winning moment.

The Caring Dress was Plant’s most recent acquisition, but a burgundy Caroline Charles coat was the first piece she ever purchased. She admitted that she set her sight on the coat dress “because it was [valued] the cheapest” at the auction, but also decided it “was the best dress, because she’s carrying William” in the photos of Diana in the piece. “I knew that would retain its value for a longer period of time because William’s associated with it,” Plant explained of the coat, which sold for $125,000.

“The Versace was the second, and the rest is just a slow and steady acquisition, acquistion, acquisition,” she said, referring to a beaded Versace column dress that sold for $200,000 in 2015.

As for Princess Diana’s famous black "Revenge Dress," which is going on the Sotheby’s auction block on December 9, Plant said she’s “not planning on bidding—unless I win the lotto between now and then.”

Diana: Love, Life Legacy, which runs through May 31 at the Reagan Library, will move on to a new, not-yet-publicly announced location once it closes in Simi Valley.

“The idea is to travel wherever it can go around the world first, but I do want for it to end up in a permanent exhibition in London,” Plant says. “That would be my absolute dream goal come true.”

The Princess Diana Museum founder adds that while she “doesn’t know how that’s going to happen yet,” she’s “setting her intentions” for a permanent home for the collection. “I know Diana’s looking over me, because that’s what she does.”

Tickets for Diana: Love Life Legacy—A Life of Giving are on sale now through the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum.

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