Patents on the soles of your shoes...: Oh, patents! Altina Schinasi cat-eye spectacle frames

Saturday, August 5, 2023

Oh, patents! Altina Schinasi cat-eye spectacle frames

On Aug. 4, 2023, the Google splash page Doodle was designed to celebrate the 116th birthday of Altina Schinasi. Altina Schinasi was the 1930s inventor of the cat-eye-shaped, spectacle frame design for women, also called Harlequin eyeglass frames. Harlequin because their shape was inspired by the mystery and romance of Venice Carnaval Harlequin masks.

Altina Schinasi, a trained artist, with Sephardic roots in Turkey and Greece, lived and worked in New York City, initially as a window-display designer for Fifth Avenue stores in Manhattan. Thus, the ingenuity of her cat-eye spectacle frame invention is said to have also stemmed from having noticed, in optician window displays, that eyeglass frames for women were all boringly round.

Altina Schinasi was married in 1928 first to a renowned architect called Morris B. Sanders, whose name she took to publish all her patented designs. The following are two US design patents that were granted to Altina Sanders, aka Altina Schinasi, specifically for the Altina Schinasi cat-eye-shaped spectacle frames.

USD113882S, titled Design for a spectacle frame, awarded March 21, 1939
USD118391, titled Spectacle frame, awarded January 2, 1940

Altina Schinasi brought her spectacle design invention to market, securing contracts with department stores and setting up a production and distribution office. Eventually, Schinasi also expanded her spectacle frame production company to the West Coast, when she moved to Los Angeles, where she lived for 17 years.

Schinasi's cat-eye-shaped spectacle frame design was by far her most successful design, and is still in vogue to date. In the 1940s, such famous people as Lucille Ball, Marilyn Monroe, and Audrey Hepburn wore her cat-eye-shaped spectacles. Schinasi was also the recipient of the Lord & Taylor American Design Award in 1939, for having transformed eye-glass frames for women into a fashion accessory.

Below, the patent Figures 1, extracted respectively from each of the two cat-eye-shaped spectacle patents, as well as the vibrant Google Doodle celebratory cat-eye-shaped spectacle frame design, which brought Schinasi back into the limelight.