"Rags", the Epilogue

Issue No. 1— not one of mine

Last fall I wrote about an unusual effort at publishing a fashion/lifestyle magazine for the hippie nation. You can read the post by cutting and pasting this link:

http://allwaysinfashion.blogspot.com/2015/10/dusting-off-rags-magazine.html

Someone took me up on the offer to purchase my collection of seven "Rags" magazines from 1970-71. The publication had a short life— from June 1970 to June 1971, so these issues represent a good chunk of its existence.

I'm happy to say they have gone to a scholar, a textile/costume curator at a major American museum. I couldn't be happier.

For years they took up (very little) space on a closet shelf. As a former magazine designer, I have quite a collection that I wouldn't part with: from the first issue of "People" to an early Beatles fanzine. I was never really attached to those copies of "Rags", though I certainly kept them long enough. 

Part of the problem

Now that they are out of my possession, I am wondering what there was that I didn't treasure and want to keep always. I think what bothered me most was that a commercial publication for counter-culture fashion now meant it was a firmly entrenched enterprise, with retail and manufacturing establishments, bottom lines to meet and  percentages to sell-through. "Hippies" had morphed from a vile social movement (according to the establishment) to acceptance and a desire to emulate.

The greatest proof of that might have been my brother-in-law, who put hippies down at every chance early on but sported a moustache and sideburns by the mid '70s.

Today "boho" is just a look and maybe a nostalgic look back to a more naive time when those who wore them really believed love beads could change the world.

Waving them goodbye...