Dolly Parton Said She Modeled Her Signature Look After The ‘Town Tramp’

Country music legend Dolly Parton is known for her signature look almost as much as she’s known for her musical talent. Big blonde hair, an ample bosom, and sparkly gowns are just some of the hallmarks the 76-year-old singer is known for. In a recent interview, the “Jolene” composer explained how she created the Dolly Parton image.

The performer said many people tried to discourage her from looking like “trash” and dressing the way she does, at least early in her career. 

“The main advice that people wanted to give me was to change my look and to go simpler with my hair and the way that I dress. Not to look so cheap, nobody was ever going to take me seriously, they would say,” Parton said during an interview on the “WorkLife with Adam Grant” podcast.

She admitted to having some unlikely inspiration for her current look. 

“The way I look and the way I looked then was a country girl’s idea of glam, just like I wrote in my ‘Backwoods Barbie’ song. But people wanted me to change, they thought I looked cheap. But I patterned my look after the town tramp,” the Tennessee native admitted.

“Everybody said, ‘She’s trash,’” she continued. “And in my little girl mind, I thought, ‘Well, that’s what I’m going to be when I grow up.’ It was really like a look that I was after. I wasn’t a natural beauty. So, I just like to look the way I look. I’m so outgoing inside in my personality, that I need the way I look to match all of that.”

This wasn’t the first time Parton referenced the “town tramp” who inspired her over-the-top look. While speaking with The Wall Street Journal in May 2021, the Grammy Award winner described her overall vibe as “glamorous trash.”

“They called her trash, but to me she was absolutely beautiful,” Parton said of the woman she admired from her hometown. “She wore colorful patchwork skirts and pretty blouses and showed a little cleavage and had red nails and piled-up blond hair and red lipstick and high heels. She was the prettiest thing I’d ever seen.”

“When everybody would say, ‘Oh, she’s just trash,’ I’d say, ‘Well, trash is what I’m going to grow up to be,’” she continued. “And I guess my look is glamorous trash!”

It’s been well documented that Parton grew up extremely poor, living with 11 siblings in a one room cabin near the Little Pigeon River in Tennessee. She described her family as “dirt poor” but full of love and support. The “9 to 5” singer got her first guitar at 8 years old and immediately fell in love with singing.

“I count my blessings far more than I count my money because I know this could have not happened to me,” Parton said during the podcast interview. “I see so many people more talented than me that never make it and the fact that I have just done so well I’m amazed myself. It’s almost scary sometimes. I hope I can always live up to the expectations of me it would break my heart not to. I’m very humble and that’s because of my love to God and the blessings.”

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