Glance around any department store and you’ll find a veritable buffet of textile patterns that you can rattle off without a second thought: plaid, stripes, paisley, seersucker, fleur-de-lis. Each ...

I didn't know that the modernist architect Alfred Loos considered patterns and other eye-catching ornaments to be tools of the hegemonic imperialist status quo, but that's probably just me. I also did ...

The polka dot may be a ubiquitous feature of dresses, bikinis, and twee collegiate bedspreads in the modern era, but as patterns go, it hasn’t been around for that long. The eye-popping pattern gets ...