At 77, Dolly Parton remains the ultimate poster woman for wearing whatever you like
We’ve all heard the old adages about what women (funnily enough, it never seems to apply to men) should and shouldn’t wear at certain ages. No crop tops after 40, no miniskirts after 50, no sleeveless dresses after 60 and the list goes on, with debates on knees, upper arms and décolletage along the way. And anyone who missteps is hit with the dreaded ‘mutton dressed as lamb’ line. How tiresome.
Thankfully Dolly Parton, 77, is here to prove that fashion has very little to do with the date on your passport – and that really all we can do is wear what makes us happy. As illustrated by the fact that at the halftime show of an American football game this week, she broke every rule going by appearing in the sort of cheerleading get-up most of her fellow country women wouldn’t have dragged out since high school.
It was a Cowboys-Commanders game and Parton dressed in the colours of the Dallas Cowboys, whose cheerleaders’ videos on high-kicks and cartwheels regularly go viral. And as she stepped on to the pitch, a group of identically clad 20-somethings appeared in the exact same clothes. Parton beamed at them and the crowd went wild.
More than the young dancers below her, Parton immediately commanded the attention of the entire AT&T Stadium in her itsy bitsy blue and white top (which was both low-cut and cropped), which she paired with white mini shorts. Her earrings were arguably the only oversized items on her body: huge silver and diamante-inflected hoops that swung around her face as she sang.
She belted out two of her biggest hits, Jolene and 9 to 5, and finished the set with We Are the Champions and We Will Rock You. Her trademark long blonde curls, blue eyeshadow and deep, drawling voice ensured that even the cover hits were made entirely her own.
When it comes to clothes, Parton has never been one to listen to the naysayers. In the opening pages of her fashion memoir Behind the Seams: My Life in Rhinestones, she writes, “I had to resist a lot of ‘advice’ telling me to tone down my look.”
She succeeded – perhaps because it was an aesthetic she first decided on as a teenager living in the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee. In her memoir she describes admiring the look of the local “town tramp”, and deciding to follow her lead with a tower of peroxide hair and make-up that she slept in at night (in case an emergency should force her to go out in public). As she famously said, “it costs a lot of money to look this cheap”.
From then on, her appearance only got more over-the-top, although it might surprise you to learn that her long-time creative director, Steven Summers, often has to try to subdue some of the bedazzled elements of her clothing before he gives them to her. “As soon as I’ve finished the sketches and I have everything the way that I want it, I take half of the embellishments off,” he says. “She’s so small. She doesn’t need all that.”
They started collaborating in the year 2000 when Parton was in her 50s, and since then Summers has put her in chiffon ball gowns, leather catsuits, tiny miniskirts and even a pair of butterfly wings. And while there have been a few updates to her look over the years, and her hair has got slightly less dramatic, her overall commitment to glamour has very much remained the focus.
“If you think about her style and silhouettes over the years, it’s always been consistent,” Summers explains. “Her body hasn’t changed in 60 years – we just have to try to do that figure justice.”
As for slipping off into retirement in a pair of comfortable shearling-lined slippers, that’s the last thing on Parton’s mind, as Christian Louboutin continues to make all of her six-inch heels, which she wears every day.
And thank goodness for that, because Parton really wouldn’t be Parton if she was belting out 9 to 5 in a pair of navy slacks and a nice cardigan. Jolene and her eyes of emerald green would have really had the last laugh then.
More of Dolly Parton’s more-is-more style
