Polka dots are so fun to wear and definitely add a graphic element to any ensemble, but maybe you’ve always wondered how they came to be—or where the name even originated from. For you curious fashion ...

Because they make me happy. They actually have a reputation for doing that. It’s true. Polka dots hearken to the 1950s and suggest simplicity, fun and cheerfulness. But it hasn’t always been so. In ...

I didn't know that the modernist architect Alfred Loos considered patterns and other eye-catching ornaments to be tools of the hegemonic imperialist status quo, but that's probably just me. I also did ...

The meaning of polka dots has been associated with disease, dancing and crime.(Pete/Flickr/Public Domain) From the vague suggestion of leprosy to feared Canadian bank ...

Get any of our free daily email newsletters — news headlines, opinion, e-edition, obituaries and more. In the 1960s, it was the twist; in the ’20s, the Charleston. But these fads were mere blips on ...

Can a pattern make you happier? Yayoi Kusama thinks so. Of polka dots, her signature motif, the spot-obsessed Japanese artist wrote: “They scatter proliferating love in the universe and raise my mind ...

Glance around any department store and you’ll find a veritable buffet of textile patterns that you can rattle off without a second thought: plaid, stripes, paisley, seersucker, fleur-de-lis. Each ...

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