Spot on: (clockwise from top left) Box bag £32, Topshop (topshop.com) Skirt £1,390, David Koma (browns fashion.com) Jumper £40 Monki (monki.com) Skirt £252, Diane von Furstenberg (matchesfashion.com) Tote £170, Marni (marni.com) Dress £49, Mango (mango.com) Shirt £430, Ostwald Helgason (brownsfashion.com).

I’m all embracing when it comes to wearing prints – florals, stripes, geometric patterns, checks, childish animals, landscapes, slogans – anything goes. Somewhere in my sock drawer is a pair of nude stockings that have penises with wings printed all over them. I wear them underneath a sheer black skirt that I lift up after a few too many drinks as an inane party trick.

I digress. The point is I’ll wear just about any print. Except when it comes to the humble polka dot. Somehow, anything dotty and I have had a sketchy relationship. The mere word associations are enough of a deterrent – dot-matrix printers and their shrill noises, teachers in sixth form who used to say my outfits were a little bit “dotty” (I think it was their kind of way of saying: “You look like a lunatic”), Dot Cotton from EastEnders and her terrifying raised eyebrows. More specifically, when the polka dot is applied to clothing, for some reason I find it difficult not to see terrible reproductions of 50s wiggle or swing dresses for the retro-gazing connoisseur who thinks the drudgery of a 1950s housewife is far preferable to living in the present day. See? I’m already fudging explaining why the polka dot and I don’t get along by resorting to snide remarks about 1950s aficionados. I’ll backtrack and apologise. I hope you’re well and truly happy with your record player and your hostess trolley.

The polka dot is back in disguised form, though, this autumn/winter. At the Marc Jacobs show, it came as plastic cabochons on a ponyskin sweater and as rubberised dots on taut pencil skirts. At young London designer David Koma’s show, it fell in op-art formation on body-conscious dresses and in circles laser-cut out of leather dresses with the odd pompom placed here and there to emphasise the point. At Stella McCartney it fell daintily on a sheer white dress and matching sheer trousers, which looked fresh when poking out of an oversized mannish blazer.

I’ve also just come back from a trip to Tokyo where the polka dot reigns supreme (it’s probably down to the eccentric female doyennes of Japan, designer Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons or the artist Yayoi Kusama) and they come as fascinating layers, mixed artfully with other prints.

All of this has left me with no choice but to confront these newly bejazzled dots to see if I can overcome my inexplicable last print frontier. They are almost undetectable on a monotone boiled wool jumper. They come in slightly misshapen form so that the polka dot’s usual perfect roundness is pleasingly messed up. They come with distressed edges and dip-dyed effects. These are polka dots with special FX and feel that much more appealing than the Minnie Mouse dotty frocks of yesteryear. I’m now fully prepared to be chased down the street by the old-school polka-dot gang of women with perfectly coiffed hair and red lipstick. Perhaps our dots can join together somehow.

Source from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/fashion/2011/nov/20/susie-lau-polka-dot-retro