The Very Best of Rags 1970–1971

In 1970, Baron Wolman (1937–2020), founding chief photographer of Rolling Stone, joined Mary Peacock, Daphne Davis, and Blair Sabol to create what he affectionately called “The Rolling Stone of Fashion.” The result was Rags, an independent magazine that documented the rapidly changing relationship between fashion, identity, and popular culture at the beginning of the 1970s.

Published for 13 issues between 1970 and 1971, following two early prototypes, Rags rejected the conventional authority of contemporary fashion magazines. Rather than dictate trends to its readers, it looked directly at the way people were dressing, living, and defining themselves. The magazine treated fashion not simply as an industry, but as a reflection of social change and individual expression.

Its pages moved freely between fashion, literature, music, photography, and underground culture. Subjects ranged from street style, tattoo culture, lesbian style, dandies, clergy, and prison rodeo clowns to features on Jimi Hendrix, Ed Ruscha, Kurt Vonnegut, Janis Joplin, Imogen Cunningham, the Cockettes, Holly Woodlawn, Betsey Johnson, and Robert Crumb.

The Very Best of Rags 1970–1971 brings together a carefully selected survey of material from all 13 published issues and the two surviving prototypes. Compiled and edited by Dagon James with Baron Wolman, the book presents the breadth of the magazine’s editorial vision while introducing its photography, writing, and design to a new generation.

“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.”
—Baron Wolman, 2020

SPECIFICATIONS

8.5 × 11 inches
Material selected from 13 published issues and two prototype issues

SOFTCOVER
254 pages
Currently unavailable

HARDCOVER
Expanded to 272 pages
Signed by Dagon James
Currently unavailable