Patternalia: An Unconventional History of Polka Dots, Stripes, Plaid, Camouflage, & Other Graphic Patterns

by Jude Stewart

We wake up in the morning and put on our striped socks and our plaid shirts, sit down to breakfast at a gingham tablecloth, perhaps eyeing the wallpaper with its fleur-de-lis. Patterns are everywhere--yet they can go unnoticed. In fact, every pattern is a story, a surprisingly deep trove of historical information and cultural associations.

Jude Stewart, author of ROY G. BIV : An Exceedingly Surprising Book About Color , brings her same sprightly sense of humor, sparkling personality, and roving curiosity to this cultural history of patterns. From camouflage to keffiyeh, plaid to paisley, slipping out of the Carmelites' scandalously striped mantle and into an itsy-bitsy-teeny-weeny yellow polka-dot bikini, Patternalia plumbs the backstories of individual patterns, the surprising kinks in how each developed, the parallels between patterns natural and invented, and the curious personalities these patterns accrue over time. Boldly designed by Oliver Munday and cleverly cross-referenced, Patternalia is pure pattern a beautiful object and a dazzling read that will appeal to anyone interested in design, fashion, and the cultural history buzzing all around us.

Genres: Art, Design, Nonfiction, History, Art Design, Art and Photography, Fashion

160 pages, Hardcover

First published October 13, 2015

About the author

I write about design and culture for magazines including Slate, The Believer and Fast Company among others. As a contributing editor for Print, I also blog twice monthly about color, patterns, and other design-related hilarities. And I do it all from the great city of Chicago.

Reviews

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really fun trivia that deconstructs—literally—patterns: polka dots, stripes, plaids, florals, all the way up the scale of sophistication to a brief foray into fractals. This is engaging stuff, and the best part is that you'll never run into the issue of where to use all these good factoids, history, and etymology—just take a look around. Mental-Flossy in scope but well-organized and enjoyable; recommended.

[Kerfe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although filled with plenty of interesting information and asides, this book is seriously deficient in illustrations. If I hadn't worked in textiles, most of the time I would have had no idea what Stewart was talking about, and no way to visualize what he was discussing.

The "footnotes" running across the bottom of each page were also an annoying and distracting addition to the main text.

Good idea: bad execution.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

Built on the same bones as her previous book Roy G Biv, it has a pleasant tone and is easy to read. However, it seemed somewhat lacking. I don't know if it was the primarily black and white layout, the scarcity of examples, or just generally a bit lackluster presentation. Maybe it was just too much of the same. Still, full of some interesting trivia.

[T · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting read, but in desperate need of more illustrations or pictures. As a reader with English as a second-language I found it really hard to follow along sometimes. More illustrations would have helped a lot.

The book touches upon lots of interesting topics, and refers to lots of other books that the reader can check out for more information. I learned lots of fun facts and interesting stories, but the book does not cover any of the subjects really in depth. At the same time it can serve as a good introduction to lots of topics, and encourage the reader to find more in depth information for themselves.

[Liz Yerby · Rating 3 out of 5]

You can kind of tell someone wrote a good article and then stetched it into a longer book. I appreciate the thoughtful book design and illustration, but also would’ve rather enjoyed photos of the patterns we described being used. Some facts will really stick with me, but I did skim a lot of it.

[Beholderess · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some interesting trivia, but too unstructured, and definitely needs pictures

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting book which i did not finish.

[Tim Belonax · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wish I could recommend this book but its lack of illustrations and format made it a slog to get through. The material is great and begs for illustration or photography.

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this more than Roy G.Biv because the information in it was much more unexpected. Patterns are all around us yet we don’t notice them so much and don’t think much about where they came from.

[AskNezka · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting tidbits, but unstructured narrative is clumpy and not enjoyable to read. Also, few subjects get a 'deep dive' so overall it feels to be a very superficial read.

[B. W. Wilhelm · Rating 5 out of 5]

Informative but fun, with plenty of pop culture references and head-spinning factoids.

[Andréa]

Note: I received a digital review copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley.

[Marc · Rating 4 out of 5]

(review pending)

[Rhode PVD · Rating 4 out of 5]

An impressively dense little book. Remember the Cheers TV show character Norm who knew factoids about all sorts of odd things? This is like Norm on the topic of patterns. All sorts of quick background facts about everything from stripes to camo. Mostly patterns as used on fabrics, although there's a very brief discussion of wallpaper.

I was expecting something on the lighter side of the content spectrum. I thought this would be a coffee table book with big pretty photos of patterns and fairly brief captions giving quick background notes. Instead this is a smallish (maybe 6x6"?) square book that's mostly somewhat dense text. It's broken up with occasional illustration pages that have nothing more than a simple version of the pattern in question, or a brief literary quote about that pattern. The only colors throughout are black, very pale pink, cream, and occasional grey. The paper is fairly thick matte stock (so no shiny and no photos.)

Happily, the author gives source notes for all of her factoids in a reference section at the end. These are not as detailed as traditional scholarly footnotes, mostly book names and not pages or primary source materials. But I'm cool with that.

I'm just impressed at the feat of organization it took to pull this off. Gathering so much research into a handy, digestible format is not easy. And it's all written up appealingly in English for non-academics.

[Heather Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

Patternalia is chock full of amazing history and culture as it relates to patterns. Each section is devoted to a type or style used in patterns such as dots, stripes, and flowers. Who knew that what we think of as "African prints" are actually Dutch wax batik designs that gained popularity in Africa during the 19th Century? This is such a cool book that will be a hit with artists and history buffs, and would be a useful addition to an Art classroom at the high school or college level. The only improvement I would suggest is to include more pictures, art, photos, or examples of various patterns.
Thanks to Netgalley for the e-galley of Patternalia!

[Ben Flack · Rating 2 out of 5]

Such a great idea!!!!! ...but how on earth do you make this book and only show a small selection of the patterns that are mentioned????!?!?! How did someone put this together and think it was NOT essential to show at least one example of every single pattern?!!?!?

This could be fantastic, but unfortunately it's just not. If there's ever a new edition with complete samples of more than just a handful of the patterns, it'll be great.

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was seriously such a fun read, so many tidbits about the history of pattern. As some have suggested, there could have been a few more descriptive illustrations, but I felt like the target audience were people who already had a passing understanding of pattern. I think my favorite part was the layout. So clean and graphic. Big fan. Can't wait to go back and read the book on color now.

[Jake Losh · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was really enjoyable but totally lacking in illustrations. A book about patterns can only go so far without pictures. I spent a lot of time Googling things. Still, I feel like I've come away with a newly shifted point of view and for that I am grateful.

[Catherine · Rating 3 out of 5]

I admired the design of this book, but I guess I'm kind of old school about pattern books. If you describe an amazing sounding pattern I want to see an example of it instead of having to google it. Also, the internet 2.0 style footnotes were a bit distracting.

[Gretchen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Um, it was fine? Some cool anecdotes and an excellent bibliography to follow down the rabbit hole. Not an in depth treatment of the material by any means.

[Rebecca Knight · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting, attractive book but would like graphics for EACH of the patterns

[Sam · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting topic, disappointing layout. Would have been much more enjoyable with illustrations and examples or a format that didn't resemble a work-in-progress Wikipedia.

[Eww · Rating 3 out of 5]

Inspiring,

Work on camo and Dutch wax fabric was enlightening.