HISTORY __ Polka Dots, or Lunares

August 29, 2019

A printed subject study :

Polka Dots, or Lunares (Spanish, translates to "little moons").

The term Polka Dot comes from the polka dance craze that swept through Europe in the mid-19th century. The word “polka” itself comes from the Polish for “Polish woman” — in Czech, it translates to “little woman or girl.” Which makes sense, given the polka dots inherently feminine feel.


	Miss America 1926, Norma Des Cygne Smallwood, in one of the first polka dot "bikini's".

The term “polka dots” to refer to a spotted fabric first appeared in print in 1857 in Godey’s Lady’s Book, a Philadelphia-based women’s magazine of the time period, but appeared mainly on accessories until post-war when machines helped to make the dots evenly spaced.

Frank Sinatra's first hit, recorded with jazz musician Tommy Dorsey in 1940, was a song called “Polka Dots and Moonbeams.”

A dream dotted scenario photographed by Richard Avedon for Harper’s Bazaar, 1949.

Polka dots hit haute couture status when Christian Dior used them in his infamous New Look collection, which Vogue called, "an unblushing plan to make women extravagantly, romantically, eyelash-battingly female”. The polka dot dress was Dior’s best-selling New Look piece in 1954.


	Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell at Graumans Chinese Theatre, 1953.


In 1960 Brian Hyland's proto-Playboy anthem about a shy voluptuous girl who wins mens' hearts (and in-turn the hearts of polka dot lovers everywhere).		Bob Dylan donned a green polka dot shirt on the cover of his single "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" in 1964. A ballad of a thin, dot-loving man.