In addition to being a friend and mentor to Loretta Lynn, Patsy Cline also provided fashion advice.
Loretta’s former designer, Tim Cobb, shared with PBS’ American Masters that Patsy’s fancy attire inspired Loretta to start wearing her famous ball gowns.
“Patsy Cline is the one that got Loretta into wearing the long gowns. Patsy was the inspiration,” he says. “Loretta said that Patsy was the first country music singer that ever wore the long gowns. She dressed uptown. And that inspired Loretta to start wearing gowns.”
Tim designed the 75-pound gold gown featuring glass beads for Loretta’s 50th anniversary of being a Grand Ole Opry member and the blue dress worn on the cover of her 2004 album, Van Lear Rose.
“She wore it so much because her fans loved seeing her in it,” Tim says of the Rose dress.
But gowns weren’t the only fashion statement Patsy helped Loretta make. In fact, Patsy gave her friend a pair of underwear that Loretta displayed in her museum years later.
“She’s given me a lot of clothes. That might’ve been what she was trying to tell me, dress better,” Loretta said of Patsy. “I don’t know how long she had them, but I never did wear these panties out, I just kept them. There ain’t no way to wear them out.”
Loretta and Patsy were friends for about two years before Patsy died in a plane crash in 1963. Loretta passed away in 2022 at the age of 90.
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