Dolly Parton and the art of becoming an icon

Dolly Parton died on August 25, 2026, at the age of 80, leaving behind something larger than a catalogue of songs or a particularly successful career. There are artists whose work becomes part of popular culture; Parton’s work, image and personality seemed to move through it. Her name could conjure a song, a blonde wig, a rhinestone, a pair of impossibly high heels, a Tennessee accent or one of her many one-liners. She had become recognisable in the way certain symbols are: immediately, almost everywhere, and without much explanation.

Parton understood the possibilities of self-invention early. When she signed her first major recording contract with Monument Records in 1965, she was developing not only her sound but the appearance that would accompany it: a giant platinum wig, six-inch heels, a push-up bra, and rhinestones. The clothes were often tightly cut and emphatically feminine; the hair grew taller; the sparkle accumulated. She eventually called herself a ‘Backwoods Barbie’. At the time of her death, The New York Times reports that she had more than 350 wigs, more than 2,000 pairs of shoes, and an archive of stage clothes occupying 50,000 square feet.

The clothes had a particular history. Parton had grown up in rural Tennessee, one of 12 children. She later recalled a woman in her hometown whom others called the ‘town tramp’. Where they saw vulgarity, Parton saw the red lipstick, high heels, bright hair, and glamour. It became an early lesson in the fact that beauty could be a matter of perspective. Years later, when record executives wanted to flatten her hair and put her in more streamlined clothes, she resisted. “I hated everything about it,” she recalled. “I felt naked.”

So the wigs stayed. They became practical as well as theatrical, protecting her hair from the bleaching, teasing, and heat that went into maintaining the look. She could describe her hair as a ‘fire hazard’ and herself as ‘an eyesore’, while turning up in a hot-pink jumpsuit, an icy blue gown, a pearl-covered jacket, or a yellow skirt suit, usually with enough rhinestones to catch the light from across a room. “I like more,” she once told Barbara Walters when asked why she did not simply wear less.

It was an image that could have overwhelmed the music. Instead, the music kept enlarging it.

Parton wrote roughly 3,000 songs during her career. Jolene, I Will Always Love You, Coat of Many Colors, and 9 to 5 became part of the common vocabulary of popular music, each travelling well beyond the circumstances in which it was written. Jolene has been recorded by artists across genres; Whitney Houston’s version of I Will Always Love You turned Parton’s composition into a global standard; 9 to 5 gave working women an anthem that reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, Billboard Hot Country Songs, and Billboard Adult Contemporary charts.

Her songwriting remained closely tied to the world she came from. Coat of Many Colors, drawn from a childhood memory of a coat her mother made from scraps, carried the emotional architecture of poverty, shame, and maternal love inside a deceptively simple country song. Her Appalachian background was never something to be disguised as her audience expanded. The accent stayed; so did the stories.

That may explain why Parton could travel so easily between audiences. She was a country star who became a Hollywood actor, a songwriter whose work was absorbed by pop, rock, and soul, and an entertainer whose collaborations eventually stretched from Kenny Rogers and Linda Ronstadt to Miley Cyrus, Beyoncé, and Sabrina Carpenter. Her influence kept changing shape because the material was sturdy enough to survive reinterpretation.

The ‘Dolly look’ travelled in much the same way. Miley Cyrus appeared beside her in coordinated outfits. Beyoncé returned to Jolene. Sabrina Carpenter performed with her. Fans organised Dolly look-alike conventions; drag performers made their own versions of the blonde wigs, high heels, and rhinestones. Parton even entered one such competition at a West Hollywood gay bar and lost.

There was humour in all of it, but there was also an unusual degree of control. In 1977, when Barbara Walters asked whether she ever felt people thought she was a joke, Parton replied: “The joke’s on the public. I know exactly what I’m doing, and I can change it any time...I’m sure of myself. I’m sure of my talent.” The confidence was not without evidence. By then, she had already written Jolene, I Will Always Love You, Coat of Many Colors, and Down from Dover.

That confidence eventually became part of her cultural legacy. For many women, Parton became an example of a femininity that did not have to be edited out of ambition. She could wear a push-up bra and write songs about economic independence; she could build an empire while maintaining the persona of the country girl; she could make herself the butt of the joke without surrendering control of it.

Her influence extended beyond entertainment, too. Parton used her platform and fortune to support literacy, healthcare, disaster relief, and LGBTQIA+ inclusion. Founded in 1995, her Imagination Library, inspired by her father’s inability to read and write, has given more than 325 million books to children around the world. She supported HIV/AIDS awareness through the documentary Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt (1989) and ‘Red Hot + Country’ compilation music album, and later became an outspoken supporter of equality and LGBTQIA+ community. During the Covid-19 pandemic, she donated $1 million to Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s research, which helped fund work that contributed to the Moderna vaccine. After wildfires devastated her native Tennessee in 2016, she also established the My People Fund to provide financial support to families who had lost their homes.

That confidence eventually became part of her cultural legacy. For many women, Parton became an example of a femininity that did not have to be edited out of ambition.

“Find out who you are and do it on purpose,” Parton once said. 

For decades, she did precisely that. What began as one woman’s very particular idea of glamour eventually became a visual language, a musical inheritance, and a cultural archetype. There are now countless ways to dress like Dolly Parton, sing like Dolly Parton or perform a version of Dolly Parton. But there is only one Dolly.

And perhaps that is why the Dolly effect has proved so difficult to contain. She made the personal public without making it anonymous. Her songs belonged to millions; her image could be borrowed by anyone; her particular combination of glamour, humour, and sincerity became part of the culture itself.

“The way I see it,” she once said, “if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.”

For Dolly Parton, there were a lot of rhinestones on the other side.

Images: Courtesy Getty Images

This article originally appeared in Harper's Bazaar India's October 2026 print issue.

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