RS SPOTLIGHT
All Dolled Up
The queen of country shares what makes her sparkle. Besides sequins.
BY HEATHER MUIR MAFFEI
Photograph by Art Streiber
Everything Dolly Parton touches turns to bedazzled gold. The 77-year-old’s empire is worth an estimated $440 million and includes a catalog of more than 3,000 songs, a popular theme park, coveted perfumes, baking mixes with Duncan Hines, collectible clothing, and beloved charities, like the Imagination Library, which sends kids a free book each month from birth to age 5. For her latest project, she’s releasing a new book of her own (her eighth!), called Behind the Seams: My Life in Rhinestones ($50; penguinrandomhouse.com). In it, you’ll find photographs of Dolly’s private costume archive and her thoughts on her most iconic getups, including the early-career coat of many colors and Playboy Bunny suit. We talked to her about it, and about her nonnegotiables.
“I’m a very low maintenance person. I have all the expensive makeup, but I usually use things I’ve bought at a beauty supply house. I use the same liner that I line my lips with to color my lips as well. Then I put on a gloss because that stays on better. I take off my makeup with those little mineral oil pads.
And I love Olay—it’s not the most expensive, but I think it’s just as good.”
“I wear eyelashes all the time, even in the daytime. Some look better on TV, and some look better onstage—it depends what you want—so I wear different lengths.
I don’t like the lashes that already have eyeliner on them; it makes your eyes look too heavy.”
Every now and then, I’ll open a box where I have things from long ago, and I’ll smell a certain perfume I was wearing then, and it takes me back to a place. Smell can overwhelm you— in a good or bad way!”
AUGUST IMAGE; COURTESY OF PUBLISHER