RAD RAGS

In the context of 2025 its hard to imagine making your own clothing, sponsoring a
team, being stocked in stores in Canberra and Sydney and selling 50 pairs of
shorts a month but that’s exactly what Christine waring was doing, with the
design help of her young skateboarder son Joel and Husband Tom.

Pictured above, Joel skates a backyard ramp wearing a pair of rad rags shorts.

Born from frustration with expensive and hard to obtain skate clothing (Anybody
remember what it was like before paypal and the internet?) Christine, reluctant to
head back to work after maternity leave had started using her recently obtained
skills from a fashion studies course to make padded skateboarding shorts,
Christine credits her supportive husband Tom for encouraging her to go into
business with the brand.
While the word spread around town about these shorts, orders picked up with
kids and their parents (“Well made and cheaper” says Christine) both keen on
obtaining some pairs.
Initial shorts were long and Baggy, made from black corduroy with different
coloured sides, deep pockets with an elastic waist. After initial interest in them
Christine changed them to a heavy cotton drill fabric with removable rubber hip
pads(the rubber being bricklayers rubber, sold in rolls at the hardware store) and
with fabric inlays screenprinted with skulls in sydney.

Pictured above: Team rider Blake Convey wearing a pair of RAD RAGS shorts and
matching shirt.

Rad Rags was initially Stocked in 1988 by Fred of OG Canberra skateboard
shop SURFSCENE in Woden and F.O.D skateboards ,and later stocked in
SKATEBOARD WORLD in Burwood (Home of Adrian Germ free Jones and Biff
Murdoch with the first pro model skateboards in australia) and Ollie on in
Belconnen.

Pictured above: Team rider Blake Convey with the RAD RAGSs sticker toss
at a comp outside ollie on in Belconnen, Photo By Dave Pang.

Advertising was mostly done by sponsering local competitions. After a time the
decision was made to sponsor a RAD RAGS team(pictured below), Christine
flowed clothing to the guys and supported them to travel for competitions, While
they were away to save money they camped with the team which i have to
imagine was influenced by husband Toms early days as a surfer in the 60s.

Pictured below coverage from speed wheels magazine from sydney comp
involving RAD RAGS.

*Scans kindly provided by Jim Turvey from SPRAWLERS and his Oz skate library.

Team member Paul Hart remembers fondly his time with RAD RAGS
” Im pretty sure it was the late 80s (87/88) and Vert Skating was pretty big pretty
much everywhere. So skating in full pads (helmet, knees, elbows, wrists) was not
out of the ordinary. In fact, skating in pads was cooler than skating without pads
in the 80s. So the introduction of padded shorts through a small local Canberra
business called Rad Rags was welcomed in the skate scene.
Myself, Mike Donovan, Chris Lincoln, Blake and Byron Convey were asked if
we would be happy to be sponsored and represent the Rad Rags brand, and of
course we said yes. Rad Rags would hook us all up with their latest shorts
(padded and unpadded) tee shirts and stickers and we would wear them with
pride every time we skated. They also paid for us to travel interstate for
competitions (Flemington Market Comp comes to mind). 
Apart from local competitions ,Canberra was also host to numerous American
pro skater tours (the Bones Brigade Tour, Tony Magnussan Hell Tour, Alva Tour)
Byron Convey and Myself would often skate in the Canberra vert demos with
them while Mike D would usually be MC.  
Im not sure what happened to Rad Rags in the end, but I have super fond
memories of that time, and I used to wear their shorts skating vert well after they
left the market.
Rad times..”

Pictured above: Paul Hart rips the wooden ramp at woden in a RAD RAGS
shirt, Shirts were screen printed at Canberra institution MEGALO when
they were still in the shed at Ainslie shops.

Pictured below Rad Rags team from L-R Chris Lincoln, Mike D(RIP), Paul Hart, Byron
Convey and Blake Convey on the way to the comp in Flemington 1988.

All of the RAD RAGS shorts were made by hand by Christine in the studio under
her house starting in 1987. It truly was a family affair with Christine sewing and
running the business with Joel providing the guidance needed from a kid deep in
the skate scene, Tom Waring would draw the ads used to spruke the clothing to
stores, Tom was a surfer when him and Christine met so the type of imagery was
surely familiar to him.

Pictured above, original ad used to spruke clothing to stores to stock
drawn by Tom Waring.

Christine estimates they were averaging 50 pairs a month for 4 years.

RAD RAGS also produced a street wear line including shirts and some pants Christine
describes as “long light weight checkered cotton fabric, baggy pull on slouchy
pants with deep side pockets.”

Pictured above Blake convey in civic wearing RAD RAGS pants as mentioned aboved,
Photo by David Pang

RAD RAGS wrapped up as a brand in 1992. Christine had started to study
millenary(The design and manufacture of hats, for high fashion, weddings and
most notably displayed at horse races etc.)her passion to this day while Joel
works as a lab assistant and still has all his old skate gear stashed at mums
place.

Pictured above, Some of Joels old boards complete with Rad rags stickers.

Christine Still speaks highly of all the people she met in those days, the people
who supported or stocked her product and her late husband Tom who
encouraged her creativity from the beginning.

Pictured above, Christine with some of her hats and achievements in her
Studio in Ainslie, the same address that RAD RAGS was spawned from.

Christine Kept a lot of the rad rags story, using it while she taught at CIT. Pictured below are a lot of the paper items from her collection. Old rad rags stickers, unused tags, flyers from skate comps, fabric samples etc.

My heartfelt thanks to Christine for sharing her story with me.