The History of Polka Dots

Polka dots are something which is seen everywhere, be it a shirt, a can, a tin of soda pop or anything at all. But have you ever wondered where they came from or how they came into existence? Well if you don’t, we surely have the answers for you.

So what are polka dots?

While many of you would be having those dots in your mind, but let us know what they really are. They have been in since the 1950s and they are a pure symbol of fun in a simpler tone with circle shape patterns.

They might have different categories as to smaller polka dots, colored polka dots, narrow polka dots, big polka dots, symmetrical polka dots and many other in various fashions.

Where did they come from?

What is important to know is that where did they actually originate from? Well as we already told you, they originated somewhere around the 1950s and it was in the middle ages that this was a great trend on the European side.

At that time, it was fairly difficult to position all the dots at equal spaces and unevenly spaced dots even made them feel even a bit abnormal sometimes. This was because these uneven dots may look like chicken pox or even spotting in addition to disease-related blood stains. Hence, people used to think of dots as bad symbols and not anything even near to fun.

On the contrary, the eastern side valued these dots quite much. They thought of them like magic symbols or something in their culture or excitement like hunting or other rough and tough attributes of a man.

In some cultures, like in central Africa, such white dots are still represented for rites related to males.

While in Europe, clothing started to become like the expression for people and from 1590 to 1720 European women started wearing sticks of black dots fabric to hid a blemish or even enhance their beauty which was later known as patching but eventually finished in 1665 after the London plague.

By the 19th century, they came to be known by various names like Dotted Swiss (quiconce) for diagonal patterns on a five side of a dice.

The other name came by Germans known as 'thalertupfen' for bigger dots since they represented the currency Thaler back then.

Now the word polka came from polka music and polka dance that spread in Europe from 1840 to 1860 when even during the WWII polka music was revived in the USA and then for the same themes polka clothes, polka mugs, polka items started to appear. In the Godey’s Lady Book, the pattern was given the name ‘polka’ and it has stuck ever since.

What are they used for?

• They are used to stay fun trendy

• They represent the fun in a person through their random patterns

• They are used to give a lighter slightly informal look

Since, now you know all about polka dots, we’re sure you can share that with your friends too.