Dolly Parton Built One of the World’s Most Recognizable Personal Brands. She Never Staged Herself Out of It

The beloved star led with authenticity.

I’ve studied authenticity for decades, and in a forthcoming book, I write about people who exemplify what authenticity can look like in practice. Dolly Parton was one of the first people who came to mind.

So when news came Tuesday that Parton had died at 80, I found myself thinking about something she understood extraordinarily well.

Dolly Parton built one of the most recognizable personal brands in the world. And it was anything but accidental. The wigs. The rhinestones. The makeup. The clothes. The humor. Dolly was highly constructed, and she knew it. She joked about how much money it cost her to look cheap and openly embraced her over-the-top aesthetic. When country music legend Chet Atkins advised her to tone down her appearance if she wanted to be taken seriously, she didn’t. As she recalled telling him in a 2019 ELLE interview, “I can’t separate the two. This is who I am.”

And somehow, despite all that construction, Dolly Parton was widely perceived as authentic. 

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I don’t think that’s a contradiction. I think it’s the lesson.

Don’t stage yourself. Style yourself

Someone recently mentioned to me the difference between staging a house and styling one, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. 

Both are intentional. But the organizing question is different. A staged house is curated around the person you’re hoping will buy it. You remove the weird chair. You neutralize the paint. The goal is broad appeal. A styled house is curated around the people who actually live there. It can still be beautiful and polished. But it has fingerprints. It makes room for quirks, history and even a few flaws.

Source: www.inc.com