Seriously... I have seen a lot of pictures of family members in the 1940s and I have NEVER seen one wearing skimpy clothes like Mrs. Randolph was wearing. I'm not saying she was a ho, but sure she wasn't trying to be a faithful wife flaunting her body in front of a young impressionable teenage boy.
shareI don't know how it was in Rural Virginia, but most ladies in 1944 were wearing 1941 "re-boots" (if they were lucky). Wartime material was sleezy to begin with Rayon being at the front of the pack. You were also severely rationed as to materials, and things like buttons and threads. Good ol' Rayon, aka. "Artificial Silk", could react very strangely to ordinary cleaning methods. It didn't like water, so you usually used "Spot remover". If you didn't have any, you borrowed... I remember my mom saying that some people even used GASOLINE!
Wartime fabric dye was also extremely fugitive. My mom, being a Depression gal, had a very simple, slate blue silk wedding dress: knee length, short sleeved, matte crepe. (This was in 1940). By 1944, she needed a "Sunday" Dress, so she purchased a box of 1944 RIT Black DYE. This was a "City" gal, who had access to such things, and had been refurbish things since high school. That D*MNED "black" RIT, turned my Mom's dress a deep purplish shade, with iridescent green highlights...like a CROW!
As to "Mrs. Randolph", you ARE saying that she's a "ho", by "flaunting" herself, and not "trying to be a faithful wife".
Good GOLLY! You sound just like CORABETH.
I do hope he won't upset Henry...
Haha! I love it. RIP Ronnie Claire Edwards (Corabeth).
shareI thought the same thing! I don't recall ever seeing any other woman on Walton's mountain dressed like that!
shareIn fairness, you're comparing her to Olivia and Grandma and the rest of the elderly/middle-aged Baptist crowd in the locality. Olivia and Grandma made clothes from the same fabric as they made curtains and tablecloths! They needed clothes that washed and wore well and could be mended easily and worn for a long time, withstanding house and yard work, gardening, feeding the animals etc. They had 7 children and 2 menfolk as well as themselves to keep washed, fed and cared for in times of very little money or goods availability. They couldn't have afforded to waste money on frivolous clothes even if their religious and moral beliefs (both of which were outdated by the later seasons) had allowed them to, and they would almost never have had occasion to wear them. In addition they wouldn't have wanted to set a bad example to the children as they wouldn't want the girls dressing in fripperies, or the boys bringing home girls who dressed in 'vanity'.
Mrs. Randolph was essentially living as a single woman, no husband or children to care for whilst her husband was away. Very little housework to keep up with, only cooking and cleaning for herself, whenever she chose to. Low bills, few outgoings, and a lot of time to herself. She was a younger woman and likely had young friends in more urban places who would have told her about the latest fashions long before a whiff of them reached rural backwaters like Waltons Mountain, so it makes sense that her clothes didn't match the general tone of the locals.
She was free to indulge herself within reason, she would have had catalogues from Ike and been able to order ready-made clothes or fancier fabrics from the city. She had spare time on her hands to make clothes. She wore what she felt comfortable in, and since she dressed like that all the time, she was hardly 'flaunting her body' when Jim Bob came to visit, she was just going about her daily life in her own clothes.
Women are allowed to dress in a way that makes them feel attractive, without being accused of being unfaithful. That's like saying a rape victim is to blame for the attack because they were wearing a miniskirt. Wives no longer have to dress like dowdy sows, we left the Dark Ages quite some time ago in this society, for all that certain sectors are attempting to bring them back. I'm married, and the way I dress bears absolutely no correlation to how faithful I am to my husband.
The mirror... it's broken.
Yes, I know. I like it that way. Makes me look the way I feel.
Oh, NOW things are different. I'd never say that about the way a woman dresses today. However, it seemed a little out-of-period for the show IMO. and opinions are like armpits, everybody's got a couple. I grew up in TN which is pretty close to VA (even sharing a border for a bit) in the 1970s. My grandmother grew up in the 40s and was kind of like those Walton women, frugal by necessity. I don't know if they wore shorts then - I can't ask her because she died in 1992. But I have never seen a picture of her or anyone else in the family wearing shorts before the late 1950s. Maybe she did, I don't know. But even in my lifetime there have been people who would've thought those clothes were scandalous. Btw I think Grandma Walton would've been shaking her head in disgust too.
shareI think you're making excuses for them! The costume (and hair) she was wearing was a straight late-70s/early-80s sun outfit, right down to the strappy shoes - just like what Daisy Duke wore on "Dukes Of Hazzard". It certainly wasn't a considered thing to have her look like that - it was laziness. There's are loads of 1970s inconsistencies on those later episodes. Both Mary Ellen and Elizabeth wear jeans with 1970s cuts (and they're always brand new); the T-shirt Elizabeth wears a lot isn't 1940s; Mary Ellen's hair (and later, Erin's) is the Farrah flick popular in the late 1970s; the shorts ME wears in the race would have been a scandal in the 1940s (Erin's ones are right); Jeffrey's hair is a 1970s bowl cut; Mary Ellen wears a blouse on occasion with very 1970s lapels.
At least long hair going out of fashion meant that Ralph Waite's hair actually got *more* correct as the show went on, so did Jim-Bob's (c.f. "The Homecoming"!) Ben's was always too long, though.