Make Dolly Parton the 2027 Costume Institute exhibit and the Met Gala Theme
The Issue
In light of the “Galliano Affair”, we need to study and honor someone who means something to everyone. Someone the whole country can agree on and get behind. Nobody dressed like Dolly. Nobody ever has. Her attire was her message.
For sixty years Dolly Parton wore her autobiography on her body and in her songs. The coat of many colors her mother stitched from rags. The Nashville rhinestones she picked up as a kid because the “town tramp” was the most glamorous woman she’d ever seen. The wigs, the nails, the butterflies, the deliberate, joyful excess of a woman who built an empire while everyone underestimated her and left a universally positive legacy in music and philanthropy that cannot be denied.
That is a worthy Costume Institute exhibit. That is a red carpet Met Gala.
Why Dolly Parton belongs at the Met
• Working-class fashion is fashion. The Met has honored couture houses for decades. It has never examined how a poor girl from Sevier County, Tennessee turned homemade sequins into one of the most recognizable silhouettes on earth.
• She’s an archive. Sixty years of stage costumes, wigs, and handmade originals at Dollywood. The garments already exist.
• The dress code writes itself. Rhinestones. Fringe. Denim. Butterflies. Big hair, bigger hearts. Every guest would actually understand the assignment for once.
• She’s Appalachian, feminist, philanthropic, and universally beloved — a rare figure almost nobody has a bad word about, at a moment when the Met could use one.
• It can look at historical Appalachian textile and fiber work, the effect of the historical garb of the American West on Nashville’s early country costumes, a glance at how “country music style” evolved from the 60s to the present day, and the effect country costumes had on couture.
What we’re asking
We’re calling on the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute and Vogue to dedicate the spring exhibition and Met Gala to Dolly Parton — her costume archive, her image-making, and her influence on American style from country to camp to couture.
Sign. Share. Do it on purpose.
#DollyMetGala #MetGala2027 #DollyParton #WhatWouldDollyDo
83
The Issue
In light of the “Galliano Affair”, we need to study and honor someone who means something to everyone. Someone the whole country can agree on and get behind. Nobody dressed like Dolly. Nobody ever has. Her attire was her message.
For sixty years Dolly Parton wore her autobiography on her body and in her songs. The coat of many colors her mother stitched from rags. The Nashville rhinestones she picked up as a kid because the “town tramp” was the most glamorous woman she’d ever seen. The wigs, the nails, the butterflies, the deliberate, joyful excess of a woman who built an empire while everyone underestimated her and left a universally positive legacy in music and philanthropy that cannot be denied.
That is a worthy Costume Institute exhibit. That is a red carpet Met Gala.
Why Dolly Parton belongs at the Met
• Working-class fashion is fashion. The Met has honored couture houses for decades. It has never examined how a poor girl from Sevier County, Tennessee turned homemade sequins into one of the most recognizable silhouettes on earth.
• She’s an archive. Sixty years of stage costumes, wigs, and handmade originals at Dollywood. The garments already exist.
• The dress code writes itself. Rhinestones. Fringe. Denim. Butterflies. Big hair, bigger hearts. Every guest would actually understand the assignment for once.
• She’s Appalachian, feminist, philanthropic, and universally beloved — a rare figure almost nobody has a bad word about, at a moment when the Met could use one.
• It can look at historical Appalachian textile and fiber work, the effect of the historical garb of the American West on Nashville’s early country costumes, a glance at how “country music style” evolved from the 60s to the present day, and the effect country costumes had on couture.
What we’re asking
We’re calling on the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute and Vogue to dedicate the spring exhibition and Met Gala to Dolly Parton — her costume archive, her image-making, and her influence on American style from country to camp to couture.
Sign. Share. Do it on purpose.
#DollyMetGala #MetGala2027 #DollyParton #WhatWouldDollyDo
The Decision Makers
Petition Updates
Share this petition
Petition created on September 6, 2026