Polka dots have made a huge comeback this year, with Vogue Arabia calling them “the coolest pattern of spring” and Elle heralding their “decisive return”. This time, though, they’ve come back with a modern twist: new silhouettes, unusual fabrics, and fun spacing and sizes. The main colour scheme is black and white for high-fashion pieces, while navy-and-white, chocolate brown, and splashes of pink, yellow, and blue dominate the summer-casual polka palette.
Spring/Summer 2026, or SS26 to the initiated, has featured polka dots all over runways. Christian Siriano’s collection had several polka-dot looks, including a black-and-white fishtail dress with a dramatic bottom flounce, a peekaboo bodice inset, and a huge statement hat, turning the whole look into a monochrome polka showstopper. Patou’s black-and-white polka dot dress kept the look minimal with a chunky pearl necklace and black lace stockings, then added a pop of colour with pink-and-yellow pointed-toe pumps with bows on the sides. Tory Burch offered a delicate chiffon dress with draping and dainty polka dots, giving it a more modern touch.
Celebrities are doting on the dots too, including Kendall Jenner at the Khaite spring/summer show; Bhumi Pednekar in a viral dress with the dramatic layering and high-low hem over a black lace corset at the Forbes India Self Made Women event; and Demi Moore at the Cannes Film Festival photocall in a whimsical, colourful dress that looked like the dots were flying right off it, finished with a matching handbag, simple white cat-eye sunnies and pointed closed-toe heels.
Count me in. I am obsessed with the SS26 polka dot craze and the way it’s being incorporated everywhere — on shoes, clothes, bags.
What really appeals to me is how timeless polka dots are. They’re the trend now, but every time you wear them, they also feel like a nod to multiple eras of fashion that came before. This generation has taken a centuries-old print and made it fresh, while still keeping an air of nostalgia around it.
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Polkas of the past
Polka dots have retained their place in fashion mainly because of how versatile they are. Depending on how they are styled, they can look cute and innocent, or chic, edgy, and high fashion. But there was a time when dots were considered “viral” for the wrong reasons.
Back in medieval Europe, dots on clothes reminded people of the plague and other diseases like smallpox. And so the pattern came to be seen as dirty and nobody wanted anything to do with it.
The grand rehabilitation came later, in the 1840s, when a Czech folk dance called the polka became a huge sensation, and brands slapped the name ‘Polka’ on all sorts of products to cash in. Somewhere in the craze, dotted fabrics became known as the polka dots we know and love today.
The dots have a longer lineage than the name suggests, turning up much earlier in the dotted patterns of Japanese shibori dyeing. However, the evenly spaced, symmetrical dot only became possible with the mechanised weaving and printing of the Industrial Revolution.
Polka dots started gaining popularity in the 1920s on flapper dresses and through cartoon characters like Minnie Mouse. By the 1950s, they had become an It-girl print, worn by Marilyn Monroe in her famous 1951 polka dot swimsuit photoshoot and championed by Christian Dior, who called dots “lovely, elegant, easy, and always in fashion” in his 1954 Little Dictionary of Fashion. Then the Japanese label Comme des Garçons turned them avant-garde in the 80s.
Our current crop owes a lot to the 1990s: the slip dresses, string bikinis and midi and maxi skirts trending now all show traces of the era that gave us Julia Roberts’ dotted dress and matching hat in Pretty Woman.
But let’s not forget the Bollywood factor.
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Bollywood’s dotted history
Polka dots have long left their mark on Indian fashion too. In the 1970s and 1980s, actors like Neetu Singh, Parveen Babi, and Rekha wore the print on screen and off it. In 1973, Dimple Kapadia’s long-sleeved black-and-white polka dot tie-up top with a simple black A-line skirt in Bobby became one of Hindi cinema’s most recognisable polka dot looks and helped popularise it on the high street as well.
The trend continued into the 1990s with actors like Sonali Bendre, Aishwarya Rai, and Kajol, and has never really left since. Desi polka dot fashion has made a comeback this season too, inspired by the 1970s and 1990s, with polka dot saris and kurtis taking centre stage in every colour, size, and fabric imaginable. Nothing in fashion comes full circle quite like the polka dot.
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(Edited by Asavari Singh)