To many there is something special, even magical, about polka dots. But this was not always the mood that polka dots engendered.
Look at pretty much any grid of circles, of any size, and you’re looking at the pattern we call polka dot.
However, long before we called it this, and long before we replicated, printed, and wore polka dots, the charming smattering of dots cropped up on a number of animals and plants. The delicate feathers of Guinea fowl have soft grey polka dots. Cheetahs are famous for their spots, as are ladybugs, baby deer, butterflies, certain frogs, and even stingrays. In addition, begonias, mushrooms, and tiger lilies wear polka dots. And, of course, the starry night sky is the biggest polka dot pattern known to us all.
Polka Dots Go Global
In Medieval Europe, a time when there was rampant disease and decline, dot patterns reminded people of illness and incited negative feelings. Think spots of blood on a handkerchief (if you had bubonic plague), or a spotted rash on skin (a symptom of smallpox). Dots in Europe were associated with unclean and decidedly unwell circumstances in those days. But elsewhere in the world, dating much farther back, the dot pattern was celebrated and desirable.
Centuries before the European Middle Ages, Asia, Africa, India, and the Middle East all had beautiful dyeing techniques that brought polka dots into textiles.
Shibori dyeing (originally from China and adopted by Japan) is at least as old as the year 756. (Shibori in Japanese means “to wring or press” and is a close cousin of what Americans call tie-dye).
This technique would often incorporate smatterings of evenly spaced dots, creating a delicate grid of white circles against a dark indigo background. Initially, the shibori dye practice gave Japanese peasants a way to renew inexpensive hemp clothing, as the patterns hid small stains and tears. Later, it was elevated in stature and shibori was used on high-end textiles like silk and sewn into kimono.
Images via cepera, cepera, and Historia/Shutterstock.
In Africa as early as the 12th century, thick durable fabric was resist-dyed with fermented mud (meaning the mud resisted taking on the color of the dye), creating what is called mudcloth. Mudcloth included striking dot patterns (as well as many zigzags).
Images via SimeonVD, SimeonVD, SF Stock, and Nataleana.
The ancient Indonesian dye technique called Batik brought another resist-dye method. Batik used drops of dye-resistant wax to create patterns, frequently showing up as lines of perfect small circles. (The word batik may have roots from a Malay word “to dot”.)
Images via Co Rentmeester/The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock, Mangga Design, and triputrakatelu.
Australian aboriginal artists have also used dot patterns for centuries, creating an entire genre of art called “Dot paintings.”
Images via Werner Forman Archive/Shutterstock, dedoma, and MiniDoodle.
These were not always in a grid but it seems clear that the world has always treasured dots. Look at the evidence: Cave paintings in France depict dot patterns. African tribes painted bodies with polka dots during ceremonies. Ancient Egyptian tattoos for women were polka dot designs. The polka dot may have morphed over time, but it is far from new.
Why Is It Called a Polka Dot, Anyway?
Speeding forward in time, and spanning continents, we pick up the polka dot story again in Europe. In the 1600s and 1700s Europe was past the Middle Ages and many diseases had been eradicated. Dot patterns no longer reminded citizens of infection.
Fabrics were mostly made at home at this time, by hand on a small loom (this was before the Industrial Revolution). There were polka dot patterns surely, but perfectly round circles with exact spacing were difficult to achieve by hand. Once the Industrial Revolution arrived in the 1760s, machinated processes were possible. At last, the flawless, symmetrical polka dot pattern was born.
Polka dots became the fashion in the 18th century with the evolution of textile looms. Sojourner Truth wore a dotted dress in this iconic photo as well. Images via Everett/Shutterstock, Destinyweddingstudio, and Historia/Shutterstock.
Europeans accented fashions with polka dot designs as soon as they could easily manufacture the pattern. They joyfully embraced this design without reserve.
The Spanish called their dotted textiles—seen in Flamenco dresses since the 1840s—“lunares” (little moons). The Swiss wove delicate dots onto gossamer sheer fabrics which came to be known as “dotted Swiss.” Germans had a coin called a Thaler and their textile with coin-sized dots was called “Thalertupfen.”
If you’re paying attention, you realize that the polka dot pattern was still not being called a polka dot. What is a polka anyway?
In the 1840s, in Czech Republic, a new, trendy couples dance arrived called the polka. (The Czech word pulka means “little half,” possibly describing the circular steps in the dance.) The dance craze was real—people went polka wild.
Consequently, a smart marketer realized the dotted design pattern could be associated with the polka if they called the design pattern polka dot.
1844 polka costumes and modern Polish polka dancers wearing traditional garb in 2015. Images via Historia/Shutterstock and Tomasz Warszewski.
Eastern Europe, and soon the rest of Europe, saw polka dots printed and worn on hats, jackets, umbrellas, and more. By 1843, the popular dance reached France—and there, in the fashion capital of the world, the polka dot pattern became cemented further in the design lexicon.
The polka dot could only move to America next, arriving in a Philadelphia women’s magazine in 1857, where a row of embroidered circles was called polka dots for the first time in print.
Vogue Magazine covers embraced polka dots in the early 1900s. Images via Helen Dryden/Condé Nast/Shutterstock, Helen Dryden/Condé Nast/Shutterstock, and Rita Senger/Condé Nast/Shutterstock.
Dot Patterns Outside of Textiles
A new painting style arrived in the 1880s. Called Pointillism, these artworks comprised of masses of dots to create one stunning image.
The European artists ushering in this style were keen to utilize science (optics) to create art. They tried to capture the way light accumulated and worked in many small dots to affect the whole. Pointillists included George Seurat, Paul Signac, Henri-Edmond Cross, Camille Pissarro, Van Gogh, and Pablo Picasso.
Clockwise from top: Georges Seurat’s A Sunday on La Grande Jatte (1884) and The Circus (1891); Paul Signac’s Entrance of the Port of Marseille (1918). Images via The Art Archive/Shutterstock, Universal History Archive/UIG/Shutterstock, and Universal History Archive/UIG/Shutterstock.
The art world viewed the overly scientific approach as unserious, and initially pointillism was not respected (the name pointillism was meant to be reductive and disrespectful). As we know from museum walls, the dots eventually won out. Pointillism lost any negative connotation and became a highly respected art genre.
Polka Dots Today
Over many decades, the polka dot pattern remained fashionable and admired, in changing forms and applications.
In 1926, Norma Smallwood won the Miss America contest wearing a polka dot bathing costume. In 1928, Minnie Mouse had a polka dot dress that was hard to replicate in moving pictures (the technology was arduous), but she wore it in all of her still images. Then Betty Boop wore one in 1930. Frank Sinatra’s song “Polka Dots and Moonbeams” hit airwaves and charts alike in 1940. Christian Dior later debuted polka dot dresses in his 1947 haute couture line.
Images via Kvanta, Gianni Dagli Orti/Shutterstock, David Crump/Daily Mail/Shutterstock, Sudakarn Vivatvanichkul, Jonathan Hordle/Shutterstock, Jose Huesca/EPA/Shutterstock, Bob Stone/Condé Nast/Shutterstock, DidemA, Reginald Davis/Shutterstock, and Nicholas Bailey/Shutterstock.
By the 1950s, movie stars were wearing polka dots, including Lucille Ball, Marilyn Monroe, and Elizabeth Taylor. And, just the way fashion and fine art lob styles back and forth in culture, in the 1960s, artists like Roy Lichtenstein and Sigmar Polke used dotted backgrounds called Ben Day dots in their artwork (named after illustrator Benjamin Henry Day, Jr).
In 1965, artist Yayoi Kusama began developing her (still active) dot obsession, covering flat and three-dimensional surfaces in a riot of polka dots. The artist Chuck Close modernized Pointillism in the 1970s.
Polka dots just never went away. The English model Twiggy wore polka dots in the 60s. Princess Diana wore dots in the 80s. The artist formerly known as Prince wore polka dots in the 90s. Avant garde fashion designer Rei Kawakubo brought polka dots all the way to now in the chicest of formulations (as did other designers).
Images via Bert Stern/Condé Nast/Shutterstock and Arthur Elgort/Condé Nast/Shutterstock.
Perhaps polka dots, first arriving on beetle backs and mushroom caps, will be part of life on earth forever. We certainly hope so.
Cover image via Bob Stone/Condé Nast/Shutterstock, Kite-Kit, and souloff.
Additional in-story dots via YASNARADA and Blan-k.
