Very Best of Rags 1970/1971

THE VERY BEST OF RAGS

THE VERY BEST OF RAGS compiles carefully selected content by Dagon James and Baron Wolman from all 13 issues of Rags plus the 2 early prototype issues.

"Try as I may, I can't get Rags out of my mind. It was the perfect magazine for the look and the style of the times, just as Rolling Stone was the perfect magazine for the music of the times. The upheaval of society in the sixties and seventies was visible - you could actually see the changes that were going on, not only within the counter-culture but within the Nation at large. With Rags we wanted to reflect those changes on our pages, and in the thirteen issues we produced, we started a dialogue that continues to this day."  - Baron Wolman, 2020

Foreword by Baron Wolman.

Introduction by Laura McLaws Helms.

Compiled and Edited by Dagon James.

In 1970, Baron Wolman (1937-2020) took what he learned from his years as the founding photographer of Rolling Stone magazine and partnered with Mary Peacock, Daphne Davis, and Blair Sabol to publish what he affectionately called "The Rolling Stone of Fashion." The new magazine was called Rags, and though it folded in 1971 after only 13 issues, its seismic effect on the content and style of contemporary fashion magazines is still felt today. 

The inspired editors of Rags went far beyond the conventional fashion editorials of the day by publishing the kinds of features that their readers would never see in any other magazine. Instead of leading their readers as all other fashion magazines of the day were doing, Rags did something that had never been tried before, they held a up a mirror to their readers and showed them what was really happening in the world of fashion and style. Within the pages of Rags, you would find diverse features from fashion and style, to literature, music, fine-art photography... pop culture, tattoo culture, lesbian style, dandy style, fashion of the clergy, prison rodeo clown style, street fashion, and features on individuals such as Jimi Hendrix, Ed Ruscha, Kurt Vonnegut, Janis Joplin, Imogen Cunningham, The Cockettes, Holly Woodlawn, Betsey Johnson, Robert Crumb and so much more! Looking at Rags today, it’s easy to recognize how this ground-breaking magazine was decades ahead of the industry.