This style is again, a very slight frame of cat eye glasses for men that is plastic and that does have the slight upturn by the upper corner of the frame. This is a fun shape that is very subtle in terms of the cat eye shape, but it is still fun.Īnother great frame that you might want to look at is the VE3252 that is offered by Versace. This style of cat eye glasses for men does come in a ton of different colors, black, striped red, various tortoise shells, red, blue gray and even some that have blue and orange stripes. This is a plastic frame, but it does have the slight cat eye shape with the emphasis on the upper corner of the frame. This is a frame shape that is going to draw attention to the eyes and to the temples of the face and that is going to be interesting and fun for anyone that is adventurous enough to try and rock this frame.Ī great frame that is slightly cat eye in shape is the RX5383 from Ray-Ban. Eyewear companies started to truly cater to the market for feminine frames adding stylistic touches such as diamante, gold stars and elaborate flairs to the tips of the frames.Įveryone from movie stars like Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn, politicians like Shirley Chisholm, professional women and stay-at-home mothers favoured the cat eye silhouette, which tended to be smaller with a super-exaggerated, upswept flair.Traditionally the cat eye shape is something that is more associated with eyeglasses for women, but that does not mean that men cannot find a great pair of cat eye glasses for men if that is the style that they are looking for. Throughout the post-war years, the popularity of the cat eye frame for prescription lenses soared. ![]() ![]() If you want to know more about this fascinating woman I highly recommend checking out the eponymous documentary "Altina". Vogue and Life magazines credited Schinasi with revolutionizing the eyewear industry and aesthetic.Īltina exited the eyewear business in the early 40s to continue her other passions including painting, sculpture, film making and the anti-fascist and civil rights movements. In 1939 Altina was awarded the Lord & Taylor Annual American Design Award for her avant-garde transformation of the eyeglass frame into a proper fashion accessory. Her original shape designs were cut away from the romantic and whimsical harlequin masks worn at ballroom dances at the time and it is from this mask that the cat eye shape got its first name "Harlequin".Īfter initial scepticism from stores, Altina grew her business substantially over the 1930s as women across America voted with their wallets and purchased these fun, playfully shaped feminine frames. Inspired by the lack of interesting frames for women available in opticians in New York, Altina designed the first prototypes of a more glamorous silhouette. It is during this period in her late 20's that she registered her patent on the Harlequin frame. It was here that she developed a deep passion for the subject, so she changed her choice of college to art school in New York.Īltina graduated and took up work as a window dresser on Fifth Avenue for Peter Copeland, where she would collaborate with the visionary artist Salvidor Dali. The "Harlequin" FrameĪltina Schinasi was born in the Manhattan's Upper Westside in 1907, after receiving schooling in the US she made a trip to Paris in her late teens to study art. However, if we want to go right to the beginning of the cat eye story we need to learn a little about Altina Schinasi. ![]() This feline-inspired style really started to take off in the 1950s as the stars of the day took to wearing this glamourous shape on the big screen. An exaggerated upswept frame that forms the shape of a cat's eye.Īudrey Hepburn, Marilyn Monroe, Lauren Bacall, Rihanna, Gigi Hadid.
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