dancing the dishes

Having a set of bowls like these could make washing the dishes a pleasure. (Note I said 'could'. I'm not sure this task is ever enjoyable.)

I love the fact that these Polish homewares come in a range of colors that go delightfully together, because I think it's fun to have different patterns in my set.

I did already have some bowls, but we were expecting family to share dinner with us yesterday, so I dashed off to The Cup and Mug and bought three more.

As I was chatting to the owner of the business  I realised one of the patterns has polka dots on it.

 The word polka, according to Polish Language Blog on Transparent Language, means Polish woman:

Theories on the origin of the polka have been well explored before. Briefly, the music and dance are of Bohemian (Czech) origin. It was called the polka either after the Czech word for “half” in reference to the dance’s characteristic half-step, or in sympathy for the Poles’ 1830 uprising. The very word “polka” means Polish woman in the Polish language. One theory says that it may have been a Polish folk dance borrowed by the Bohemians. Another says it has Gypsy roots. Some say it can even be traced to a single person, a Bohemian girl named Anicka Chadimova.

I like my Polish 'Polish woman' bowl. (I like the others too.)

polka dots and dancing

I don't know why I'm thinking about polka dots lately. But I am. I suppose I must have seen the words somewhere without consciously registering them and they're circling in my brain. Maybe dancing a polka.

I thought the fabric pattern polka dot and the polka dance would turn out to have some convoluted history that linked them, but it turns out it's ultra simple. There was a craze for this dance in the nineteenth century and when the dance reached America, manufacturers jumped on the bandwagon, naming all sorts of products after it. It seems that polka gauze, polka hats and polka cakes aren't with us any longer, but the dots are.

Fledermaus suggests that Johann Strauss added the word Popular to the title of his 1842 Anna Polka in a deliberate strategy to launch this form as the new dance sensation. If so, it appears to have worked.



Transparent Lanaguage's Polish Blog says:

The polka was such a hit in the 1840s that the word polka was attached to the names of many products sold. There was no connection to the dance at all, and nothing very different about them, but entrepreneurs saw a good way to make a buck from its popularity by adding the word “polka” to an array of goods. There were polka hats, polka fans, polka cakes, polka hairstyles and polka curtain ties. A new fabric print was introduced that featured symmetrical placement of dots throughout the material. This was dubbed polka dot style and it is the only one of these “polka” products to have maintained its name to the present day, undoubtedly due to the fact that it was a new, unique product. The name polka dot stuck.

Everybodyeverywear has an overview of the history of this fabric, and includes interesting information from Martha Stewart and Christian Dior.

I've missed out on being fashionable by only twelve months. This time last year, seemingly, polka dots were featuring on the catwalks. But I'm too old to be fashionable, anyway - old enough to remember when we were all singing about that itsy bitsy yellow bikini.