Polka dot

Polka-dotted fabrics first made their appearance in Britain in 1857 when the dance craze, the polka, was at its height. The dance was so popular at that time that polka as a prefix was applied to any number of totally unrelated products. Polka-dotted fabrics just happened to one of them and are the only product category to have generally survived this polka-mania, although, within the rag trade, the polka jacket, a short, tight-fitting jacket for women is still sometimes mentioned. Polka is a Czech word meaning, ‘Polish lady; and the dance, which originated in Bohemia, was introduced to Prague in 1831. Polka is so-called in honour of the Polish insurrection against Russia in 1830 and the dance reached England in the early 1840s.