Dolly Parton is the woman "who has everyone agree on something." To understand the phenomenon of the 74-year-old singer whose hallmarks are a wig of epic proportions, extremely long nails, and a bust of impossible measurements, it is necessary to know her story.
Dolly Parton Saving the World is a script twist at the height of 2020. With a donation of one million dollars for the research of the Covid vaccine from the Moderna American laboratory, her name turned into a hashtag that has gone around Twitter with thousands of people of all ages, origins, and ideology showing their adoration for her.
And it is that beyond her overwhelming talent as a singer and songwriter (remember that she wrote two of the most important songs of the 20th century, Jolene and I Will Always Love You on the same night) her great success has been conquering the whole world, left and right, boomers and "zetas", despite (or thanks to, in her, that line is very fine) her explosive image. As The New York Times said, if there's one thing we can all agree on, it's Dolly Parton.
But to understand the phenomenon of this excessive 74-year-old woman whose hallmarks are a platinum wig of epic proportions, extremely long nails, a bust of impossible measurements, and a costume covered in jewels and fringes, it is necessary to know her story, which begins with what "a country girl understood by glamour" in a Tennessee town in the early fifties, as she has said on occasion.
Dolly was always accompanied by two things: a prodigious voice – which was described as a rainbow, due to her childish beauty almost impossible to believe – and a fascination with glitter.
Dolly grew up in a family of 12 children with very few resources in a small town called Sevierville. She started composing lyrics before she knew how to write. She had no access to television, movies, or magazines, so she discovered her particular inspiration one day in the city when she was fascinated by a woman with very voluminous peroxide hair, red nails, lips, makeup, and heels. “I thought she was the prettiest thing I'd ever seen. And my mother said, Oh, stop looking at her. It is nothing more than trash (garbage, literally in English). And I thought: Oh, that's what I want to be when I grow up: trash ”, she later recounted.
At 10 she was singing on local television, at 13 Johnny Cash was introducing her on the stage of the Grand Ole Opry, the longest-running country music radio show in the US, and as a teenager, she began to build the image of Dolly what I wanted to be She used mercurochrome from the family medicine cabinet to paint her lips, used matches as eyeliner, put on honeysuckle as perfume and experimented with giving volume to her hair (“When the carding came out, I thought I had died and gone to heaven,” she once said). The night of her high school graduation (she was the first in her family to achieve it) she had her bags packed: the next day she went to Nashville to pursue her dream in music, and from there she jumped to New York and soon, to stardom.
Since then, her fashion served as her shield and inspiration. One of her most famous and beloved songs is Coat of Many Colors, which tells the story of the jacket that her mother, Avie, sewed from mismatched scraps of fabric and sent young Dolly to school, where her peers sent her to school. they ridiculed. The original is on display at Dollywood and the song remains one of the most heartfelt.
Jolene, 1974: The song that changed everything
Dolly was in one of the best moments of her life, about to release one of the biggest hits of her career. For the album cover, she wore a blue and white striped jumpsuit with a long-sleeved jacket made by Lucy Adams, the woman who made her clothes in Nashville. In fact, this is a constant in Dolly's life: no matter how high she climbed, she never wore big brands or luxurious designers, but she has always entrusted her outfits to the couturiers she meets in her works.
1980: The first premiere of it
In his first movie, How to Eliminate Your Boss (9 to 5 in English) he shared the lead with Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin. "I've never thought about dressing fashionably, but I knew that for something as important as a premiere I had to look elegant and I didn't know how to do it," Dolly told Vogue USA years later, with her usual frankness. So she asked Ann Roth, who had designed all the clothes in the movie, to make her something. “I thought it was a beautiful dress and I remember feeling very pretty and as if I were well dressed, not half dressed as one sometimes is. I think that was probably the first time I felt fashionable." That night, Ella Dolly wore a long pink lace dress with an enormous strapless neckline and a pink puffer coat. Roth knew that simplicity did not go down with Dolly.
The late 80s: Dolly on television
Came her own television shows: in 1987 she hosted Dolly Variety Show and two years later, she hosted and guest-starred on Saturday Night Live. In both, she was dressed as Tony Chase: "He wanted to make me big, the shoulder pads, my hair, everything, and I told him: Tony, there is nothing big about me, except my mouth and my breasts," the artist recently recalled. in an interview with Vogue USA. Studs, glitter, ruffles, colors, and impossible cuts were her wardrobe staples.
The 90s are here: even blonder blondes and even stronger makeup
Already a successful singer, presenter, and actress, she was the decade's legged excess. “I kind of built my image on Cinderella, Mother Goose (a character from children's stories), and the village prostitute,” she said, in one of her endless displays of humor.
When advised to downgrade and refine her image, she replied, “You know what? Can't. This is what I am. Not only did I not tone it down, I thought if my work was really good enough, people would recognize it." Time proved her right: today she has sold more than 100 million records, has 11 Grammy Awards, and treasures 25 number-one singles. She has written more than 3,000 songs. She has a fortune estimated at $600 million, a wig for every day of the year (or so she reckoned), and an adoring audience that passes down generation after generation.
