Feb. 1971 Truth and Soul Ad

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I'm really captivated by the ads right now. You don't see interesting ads like these anymore.

Jan. 1971 Western Wear

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An article about Western wear from the "Dressing for Disaster" issue.

Nov. 1970 Columbia Records Ad

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Even the ads in Rags were creative and make for interesting reading.

Welcome!

How do I adequately explain the significance of Rags magazine? Rags was a cultural icon of the early 1970s. It was a fashion magazine that featured the fashion on the streets, not the clothes in the store windows -- a revolutionary concept at the time. Rags also documented the counterculture movement in San Francisco and the United States through articles, profiles, photographs and ads.

Rags only lasted for thirteen monthly issues, from June 1970 through June 1971, but it had a huge impact on my life.

I don't know much about the team of people who produced Rags. I only know that the magazine touched me deeply, so much so that I saved every issue I owned. This coming from someone who doesn't save anything! Perhaps others can fill in the gaps about the production side of Rags.

You can occasionally find vintage Rags magazines for sale on eBay, and the prices are many times the original cover price of 40 or 50 cents.

Maybe the best way for you to get to know the magazine is to experience it yourself. To that end, I present pages from Rags.

Baron Wolman, renowned photographer and publisher of Rags, has kindly given me permission to post pages from the magazines here. Page images are presented in Adobe PDF file format, so you can enlarge the pages to read the text.

These pages of Rags are copyrighted by Baron Wolman and the authors, and cannot be reproduced without permission.

Enjoy a trip back to the 1970s and the phenomenon that was Rags!