- Dolly Parton spoke with The Guardian about her career, new album, and upcoming fashion book.
- She shared that her grandfather physically punished her for wearing bold outfits when she was young.
- Parton also joked about her fashion sense and said she’s worn “some of the most bizarre things.”
Dolly Parton is reflecting on her famous fashion, and the things she’s overcome to stand by it.
The legendary musician recently spoke with The Guardian about her upcoming album “Rockstar” and style-focused book, “Behind the Seams: My Life in Rhinestones.”
Discussing the latter, she shared some insight into her signature style, which she said was inspired by the “town tramp” in her hometown.
While Parton says her take on the local woman’s style “came from a very serious place,” the people in her life didn’t always support it.
She told The Guardian that her sharecropper father and preacher grandfather particularly hated her clothes, and her grandfather physically punished her for the way she dressed.
“I was willing to pay for it,” Parton told the publication about her style. “I’m very sensitive, I didn’t like being disciplined – it hurt my feelings so bad to be scolded or whipped or whatever. But sometimes there’s just that part of you that’s willing, if you want something bad enough, to go for it.”
And her family members weren’t her only critics. As Parton noted to The Guardian, record-label executives often encouraged her to relax her style early in her career — something Parton never did.
“I’ve always been true to myself,” she said. “That was what my mama always used to say, ‘To thine own self be true.’ I put a lot of stock in that. Everything I do, whether it’s my personality, how I conduct myself and business, or whatever, if I do it my way, according to what I understand and believe, there’s a strength in that. You can think, ‘I can stand by this, I can live by this.”
And even with the hard times in mind, Parton joked with the publication about her wardrobe. She noted that for all of the iconic outfits she’s worn, she’s also had some misses.
“I’ve been at this so long, I’ve worn some of the most bizarre things – my hairdos have always been so out there,” she said. “At the time you think you look good, then you look back on it, like, what was I thinking?”
Parton previously told Insider that even though she regrets some of her older fashion now, she was confident in her hair and outfits when she wore them.
“I think, ‘Oh my Lord, you must have thought you looked good,’ and I must have or I wouldn’t have worn it,” she added. “Now it’s like, ‘Oh Lord, have mercy.’ But I guess I didn’t have anything better at the time — or I thought it looked good in the moment.”
And there are some looks that remain dear to her, like the white dress she wore to perform “He’s Alive” at the 1989 Country Music Association Awards.
AP Photo/Mark Humphrey
“That night when I sang that song, it was so emotional to me,” she told Insider’s Anneta Konstantinides. “I was just overcome with a really strong spiritual high. So it left a memory in my mind and, every time I see that dress in a picture, I think of that night and singing that song. I felt like I was putting some good out in the world. So that dress, so far, is most memorable to me.”