On Dolly Parton's Signature Style, and What It Actually Meant

There was nothing subtle about Dolly Parton, and that was never an accident. For six decades she built a whole career out of rhinestones, big hair, and a refusal to tone anything down, and the world loved her more for it.

Apart from her music and her contributions to the entertainment industry and beyond, Dolly Parton will be remembered for her signature style — voluminous blonde hair, sky-high heels, flashy clothes, rhinestones, glitter — anything that screams over the top.

Parton never tried to look tasteful. By her own admission, she wanted to look "trashy." She told Women's Wear Daily in April 2025, "I want to look cheap. That's my look. I want to look a little bit, you know, trashy."

And that didn’t come cheap either. As Parton tweeted in 2011, “It costs a lot of money to look this cheap!” That candid humor and honesty made her one of the most loved women who ever picked up a guitar.

Parton's signature style didn't happen by accident. It was a conscious choice she made very early in her career, and she stuck to it.

When she signed her first record deal in the 1960s, the label wanted to flatten her hair and dress her in simpler clothes. But she hated it, saying she felt naked.

So she kept the volume. Kept the rhinestones. Kept the long nails. Shoulder pads. Low necklines. A tight waist. Fringe. And made it her own.

She took something people meant as an insult and turned it into a look. Then a career. Then a legacy.

The inspiration behind that look didn't come from a runway or a magazine. It came from a woman back in her hometown, "the town tramp," one would call her.

"They called this lady 'trash' because she wore too much makeup, big hair, red nails, high heels, short skirts, and all of that, but when I was little, that impressed me," Parton recalled.

So that woman, plus a stack of old Frederick's of Hollywood catalogs, full of lace and gowns so glamorous they barely looked real, became the inspiration behind Parton's style, long before she ever set foot in Nashville.

Criticism about her looks never bothered her. She poked fun at herself before anyone else could. Parton was both self-aware and unapologetic at the same time. She never once changed the outfit because someone laughed at it. She just made sure she was laughing too.

While Parton would often step out looking overdone, turning heads in hot pink jumpsuits, rhinestone- and pearl-encrusted cropped jackets, and vibrant colored gowns, she could get just as comfortable in what she called her "flop clothes." She'd still do her hair and makeup, because that was just a normal day for her, but she'd throw on a pullover and jeans and call it done. Maybe add earrings for visitors.

Last year, in her late seventies, Parton teamed up with the brand Good American on a denim line and called the pieces "Joleans." Rhinestones. Gingham. All the same ideas from her closet, just smaller and easier to buy.

Her answer for why she still dressed this way hadn't changed at all. She wanted to look cheap, on purpose, because the overdone and the bleached and the fake were never something to hide. They were the whole point.

Most people don't own acrylic nails or a closet full of fringe. But there's a little bit of that conviction worth borrowing. Let yourself be a lot, if a lot is who you are.

Parton said it best, and it's as good a way as any to say goodbye: "I'm gonna be me, because I know who I am and you don't."