How the Recreation of Princess Diana's Backup Wedding Dress Is Helping 'Preserve History' (Exclusive)

Elizabeth Emanuel made her mark with Princess Diana’s wedding gown, and now her remaking of the spare bridal dress is set to be on show in a virtual museum

Elizabeth Emanuel poses with her recreated spare wedding dress for Princess Diana in London on March 7, 2024. LAUREN FLEISHMAN; HAIR & MAKEUP: GRAZIELLA CAWTHORNE VELLA. Photo: Lauren Fleishman

The remaking of Princess Diana’s backup wedding dress is part of a desire to “preserve history” that might have been lost if Elizabeth Emanuel hadn’t recreated it — that’s the view of the woman who commissioned the designer to make the gown and now has it for her museum.

Renae Plant, director and curator of the virtual Princess Diana Museum, won’t say how much she paid for the recreated bridal gown, which Emanuel recently shipped to its new home in California.

“You cannot put a price tag on history,” Plant tells PEOPLE. “Preserving history is really important. It’s like pieces of art.”

Indeed, Emanuel — who created the famous gown for the then-Lady Diana Spencer for her 1981 marriage to the future King Charles — unlocked some of that history by unveiling part of the missing jigsaw in the royal wedding story by making a replica of what the spare dress for Diana.

Elizabeth Emanuel’s recreated Princess Diana backup wedding dress photographed in March 2024.Lauren Fleishman
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Plant says “secrecy” was the underlying guiding principle at the time — and Emanuel wanted the alternative as a precautionary measure.

“It was there in case word got out about the first dress,” Plant explains. “Part of what is special too is that it hasn’t been seen in public, and now we get to preserve it and show it to the world.”

Plant, whose museum “weaves through Diana’s life from her childhood to her tragic passing,” is in a good position to assess where Emanuel — as well as the designer’s former partner and fellow Princess Diana wedding dress creator David — fit into the royal story.

“I think they won the lotto when they got the commission,” she tells PEOPLE. “It put them on the map together and that’s how they became well known around the world —designing the most famous dress worn by the most famous woman in the world. And that legacy continues.”

She adds, “To be part of that special day is a huge honor, and they should both be so proud. And you can never take that away from them.”

Princess Diana and Prince Charles on their wedding day in July 1981; Elizabeth Emanuel.Jayne Fincher/Princess Diana Archive/Getty Images; Hoda Davaine-Dave Benett/Getty Images

The making of the new replica white silk gown followed another commission that Emanuel carried out for Plant: a recreation of a fuchsia gown originally created by the Emanuels for Princess Diana. She wore it at a ball in the days before her historic wedding. In fact, parts of that pink gown provided the inspiration for the back-up wedding dress.

“It was very dramatic for that time,” Plant says of the pink gown. “It would be lost in history unless Elizabeth told that through her dressmaking.”

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Elizabeth Emanuel’s scrapbook of sketches and images of the making of Princess Diana’s dress in London on March 7, 2024.Lauren Fleishman
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The virtual museum “weaves through Diana’s life from her childhood to her tragic passing” through clothing as well as capturing the “intricate parts, the letter writing and gift giving Diana used to do,” Plant adds.

Last year, Plant acquired five glamorous evening gowns, identical to the ones designed by Jacques Azagury and worn by Diana during her latter years. The dresses are “twins” of the originals worn by the Princess and include the iconic black halterneck dress she wore to a charity gala on the night that her controversial Panorama interview was broadcast in 1995.

For Emanuel, 70, her newly made dress brings back memories of her special client, Diana. She recalls the excitement — and intense pressure — that mounted in the run-up to the big day on July 29, 1981.

Diana, Emanuel says, found the designers’ studio to be an “oasis of peace” away from the hubbub and excitement. “[Diana] would go upstairs and chat with all the seamstresses. She loved browsing through the rails because this was a new world for her.”

“I don’t think she’d been particularly into fashion before she met us,” the designer adds.