Dolly Parton defended her exaggerated dress sense, sharing that she did not want to be ‘fashionable’ according to other people’s standards.
Throughout her career she has drawn attention for her signature style, a combo of over-the-top Las Vegas glitz and a bawdy take on country chic.
Her outfits are are a complement to her towering platinum hairdo, plus the formidable cleavage that once prompted Joan Rivers to joke: ‘She used to have 10 children but she nursed them and they exploded.’
In a new interview with Apple Music, Dolly, 77, dished that she was encouraged to dial back her look early in her career, including by her friend Chet Atkins.
She, however, stuck to her guns, and has now reflected: ‘I didn’t like wearing what somebody else would that’s supposed to have had good taste. But I had no taste!’
Songbird: Dolly Parton defended her exaggerated dress sense, sharing that she did not want to be ‘fashionable’ according to other people’s standards; pictured 1978
Unmistakable: Throughout her career she has drawn attention for her signature style, a combo of over-the-top Las Vegas glitz and a bawdy take on country chic; pictured 2014
Dolly clarified: ‘Not in that respect. My taste was all about what I felt comfortable in, which I think is fashionable anyway. If you’re comfortable in your own skin, in what you’re wearing or in your own clothes, there’s a lot to be said about that.’
Her view is that ‘if you’re comfortable with yourself, then you can project a certain, you know, aura, a certain essence.’
She argued that people ‘know they’re comfortable with it. Even if it looks artificial, they sense that there’s something else that’s real.’
Dolly also advocated for artificiality, saying that ‘the more natural, they say, you try to look, the longer that seems to take. So mine’s easier ’cause I know mine’s gonna be fake. I just used to kinda, painting on that pow- you know, painting and powdering, doing my blush, put on my eyelashes, throw on a wig and I’m ready to go.’
As for her stage looks, she shared that white is her ‘favorite color,’ and that ‘I love shining, I love when the lights hit me. I wanted to be a star and I wanna look like one.’
Dolly is all in favor of wearing ‘flashy’ clothes as often as possible, rhapsodizing that ‘to me, I am my best when I feel like I look good, and when I feel like I look good is when I am in my, you know, all the radiance that I can get.’
She explained: ‘When the spotlights hit me, I want you to see it! I want you to, you know, I feel good in doing that.’
Dolly also reflected on the evolution of her look over the years, beginning with her hardscrabble childhood in rural Tennessee, when as a young girl she was enamored of the outfits worn by a local ‘loose woman.’
Use it or lose it: Her outfits also play up her formidable cleavage, which once prompted Joan Rivers to joke: ‘She used to have 10 children but she nursed them and they exploded’
Throwback: In a new interview with Apple Music , Dolly, 77, dished that she was encouraged to dial back her look early in her career, including by her friend Chet Atkins; pictured 1977
She made ‘the joke, but it’s the truth, when people’d say: “Oh, she’s just trash,” and in my little mind I thought: “Well, that’s what I’m gonna be when I grow up is trash!”‘
The woman she observed ‘didn’t care what anybody thought, obviously, because she had her hair all piled up on her head, she wore bright red lipstick, she wore eye makeup and tight skirts, tight skirts, low-neck blouse.’
Dolly ‘kept that look’ in mind and began developing her aesthetic further when she entered her teen years and began high school.
‘I started teasing my own hair when that came out, and anybody else’s that wanted me to, because I’d have been a beautician had I not been in show business,’ she remembered. ‘I was doing my hair, my family’s hair, ’cause I had a knack for that.’
The Jolene songstress recalled that ‘I was wearing too much makeup and a lot of the mothers in school thought that I was a bad influence on some of their girls, thinking I was, you know, a little too cheap, a little too this, too that.
‘And their daughters were the ones that was making all the trouble, running with the boys and all that, and I was actually, you know, pretty innocent in that respect.’
Dolly’s preacher grandfather ‘thought I was going to hell in a handbasket, you know, just by looking like that. He tried to preach it off of me, and they tried to cuss it off of me, whip it off of me, but nobody could stop my desire to look and be myself.’
However his daughter, Dolly’s mother Avie, was ‘a little more flexible’ and eventually became her co-conspirator in developing her saucy wardrobe.
‘But I had no taste!’: She, however, stuck to her guns, reflecting: ‘I didn’t like wearing what somebody else would that’s supposed to have had good taste’
‘I wanted to be a star and I wanna look like one’: As for her stage looks, she shared that white is her ‘favorite color,’ and that ‘I love shining, I love when the lights hit me’; pictured 2016
When Dolly asked Avie to help her sew her tops in order to hoist her breasts up, Avie agreed, saying: ‘Well, you better not tell your daddy I did that.’
Dolly reflected: ‘And Mama trusted me too. She knew that I was a singer and I was creative and that I was different. So she tried to keep me in check as much as she could, but she did understand.’
As she began to make her bones on the Nashville scene, she faced further opprobrium for her style – including from the legendary Chet Atkins.
Dolly was just starting out, while Chet, who went on to become a dear friend of hers, was already a well-established star and a top record producer.
Chet was already fond of her when she was an up-and-comer, but still warned her: ‘Dolly, I really don’t believe that people are gonna take you serious as a singer and songwriter unless you tone down your look. You know, you got – you’re a right pretty girl. You don’t need all that.’
Remember when: She developed more appreciation for traditional standards of elegance when she worked with costume designer Ann Roth on the classic 1980 film 9 To 5
‘That was really me!’: Two years after 9 To 5, she starred in The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas, for which the clothes were designed by Theodora Van Runkle
Dolly politely promised to ‘take that to heart’ and thanked him for the ‘advice,’ then proceeded to only get ‘worse with’ her extravagance.
She developed more appreciation for traditional standards of elegance when she worked with costume designer Ann Roth on the classic 1980 film 9 To 5.
‘I think when I really started having any kind of taste or really feeling like – that it could be more, it could be different – was actually when I started doing the movies and then I started working with true designers,’ she explained.
In the designers’ clothes, she ‘could tell there was a difference in the way they were sewed, in the threads and in the, you know, it was different. I could tell it was professional, and so I felt good in those things.’
Two years after 9 To 5, she starred in The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas, for which the clothes were designed by Theodora Van Runkle.
It was in that film ‘that I thought that was really me!’ she said with a laugh. ‘You know, it was a great designer, but it was designing what I felt great in.’
