From cat fights to clicks: Dynasty’s 45-year-old legacy is still bringing the drama | Canada Voices

Shoulder pads. Lavish furs. Electric blue eyeliner. Backhanded slaps. It might sound like a Bravo sizzle reel for The Real Housewives franchise, but this was peak 1980s television. Premiering on Jan. 12, 1981, prime-time soap opera Dynasty ran for nine seasons and later inspired a 1991 reunion and a reboot that aired from 2017 to 2022. Nothing has quite measured up to the original: a drama that chronicled the luxurious, ruthless lives of rival oil baron families, the Carringtons and the Colbys, in Denver.

The show’s allure is in its female-driven cast and characters. Blake Carrington and his new wife, Krystle (John Forsythe and Linda Evans), Blake’s business-savvy ex-wife and rival CEO, Alexis Colby (Joan Collins), his secret half-sister, Dominique Deveraux (Diahann Carroll), and scheming daughter-in-law, Sammy Jo Reece (Heather Locklear) embodied Reaganomics-era excess. So aspirational were Blake and Krystle that they later got their own his-and-hers fragrances.

By 1985, Dynasty became the highest-rated drama in the United States. Scenes of black-tie parties, power plays and luxury goods were standard, the show’s dazzling opulence a classier precursor to today’s gaudy Mar-a-Lago aesthetics. Now, 45 years later, its reign continues online.

Lance Fontaine, a Melbourne-based soap superfan who has turned his hobby of posting show clips into a full-time passion, runs the Dynasty Chronicles (a Facebook page, Instagram account and blog), averaging more than 3,000 new followers a month. “The reaction was bigger than I expected … People were so hungry for Dynasty content. That’s when I knew it needed its own dedicated account,” he said.

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He’s far from alone. Reddit and Facebook communities archive years of show-related threads, and several Instagram accounts regularly post iconic photos and clips. “Dynasty fits so naturally on social media because everything was bigger – the emotions, the dialogue, the characters,” said Fontaine. “Often, you don’t even need context. A look, a line or a reaction shot says it all.”

But it’s Joan Collins’s Alexis who steals the show. Her insult scenes generate the highest engagement of any, such as when she calls Dominique a “thieving parvenu,” a derogatory term for “new money.” The cat fights are also legendary: The women trash condos, wrestle in fountains and tumble down hills. One of Fontaine’s most-liked posts of 2025 is from the season-six finale, when Alexis seizes Blake’s home through a well-played financial scheme. “Alexis stands at the top of the Carrington mansion stairs, tosses Krystle’s furs over the landing and tells Blake to take ‘his junk and his blonde tramp and get out of my house,’” Fontaine said.

Instagram is a treasure trove for Dynasty fashion admirers. What Alexis Wore catalogues a sample of 700 Joan Collins looks, and Nolan Miller Collector pays homage to the show’s costume designer. The latter frames Miller’s silk and taffeta gowns – feathered, beaded, gemmed, bowed and furred – as stylish steroids that pump up Evans’s and Collins’s performances. Paired with Tina Joseff’s oversized jewellery, almost every female Carrington and Colby is outfitted expressly for the decadent decade. Although the silhouettes are clearly of their time, Dynasty’s drama and structured shoulders feel right at home alongside the latest Saint Laurent, Fendi and Gucci spring 2026 collections.

So, why does the show still captivate in a world crowded with statement fashion? Diane Bracuk, Toronto-based author of Middle-Aged Boys & Girls, believes Alexis enthralled audiences by doing and wearing what she pleased, often outmaneuvering the old boys’ club that Blake represents.

“Dynasty also started to transform workwear,” noted Bracuk, who writes about women, aging and fashion, among other topics. “It popularized structured suits, heavy makeup, jewels and shoulder pads just as women were entering corporate life – not just as secretaries but as leaders.” The author wondered if younger viewers are drawn to Alexis as a reaction to the recent “tradwife” trend, which is associated with soft, domestic looks over more dynamic ones.

“Alexis didn’t care who she upset,” Bracuk said. “We are living in a culture of the chronically offended, and Alexis didn’t give a hoot about who she made uncomfortable. There’s a freedom to that which is so appealing to the times we are living in. She wore her clothes unapologetically, she ran her business the same way a man would – if not better – and she didn’t suffer any fools.”

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For Canada’s Drag Race season-three runner-up, Jada Shada Hudson, Dynasty’s legacy lives on in drag and queer communities as well. Hudson said its pioneering storylines – gay characters, HIV/AIDS narratives, female CEOs, women over 40 and wealthy Black matriarchs as leads – continue to inform Emmy-winning shows like RuPaul’s Drag Race and Succession. “It was ahead of the game in so many ways,” she said. “Studying Dynasty is like getting a PhD in power and glamour.”

“Alexis, Dominique and Krystle were the closest thing to Drag Race that queens like RuPaul … had in the eighties,” she added. “The way they walked into a room, conversed, read each other – and their men – to filth was shady. That is pure drag in my eyes.”

On TikTok, users fawn over Dominique’s legendary one-liners. In a much-shared season-four clip, she rejects the libation Alexis offers her during a visit to the latter’s home. Dominique sips her flute and says, “It’s burned! The champagne was obviously frozen at some point.” She has a similar reaction to the caviar: “This is Osetrova and I prefer Petrossian Beluga.” The clips have since inspired memes, mugs and T-shirts.

Hudson said Dynasty resonates with her drag family because it models selfhood in a world that pressures assimilation. “It has inspired me to create my own version of Dynasty‚” she said, noting that she plans to pass the show’s message on to her Gen Z drag daughter (a newer performer in need of a mentor), Georgina Hudson.

“Alexis and Krystle always looked like they were ready to lip sync for their life, and Dominique was a Black woman bold enough to be elaborate during every moment of every day,” said Hudson. “They acted like queens who could always command a space. Those are lessons for us all.”