Google Releases Doodle In Honour Of 'Cat-Eye' Frame Designer Altina Schinasi

Tech Giant Google's Search Engine is honouring the life of American designer Altine Schinasi on her 116th birthday on August 04 with a Doogle. Schinasi was an American sculptor, filmmaker, businessperson, window dresser, designer, and inventor. Altina Schinasi is best recognised for creating the well-known "cat-eye" eyeglass frame.

Schinasi was born on this date in 1907 to immigrant parents in Manhattan, New York, and travelled from the city's streets to Paris to pursue her passion for painting after finishing high school. Her father was a Sephardic Jewish Turk, while her mother was a native of Salonica.

Altina Schinasi pursued her artistic studies at The Art Students League in New York while working as a window dresser for multiple stores along Fifth Avenue. At New York's The Art Students League, She had the honour of working with and learning from artistic legends like Salvador Dali and George Grosz during this time, whose influence was crucial in forming her creative vision.

When Schinasi was working as a designer of window displays, she came up with the revolutionary concept for the "cat-eye" frame. She set out to develop a new and distinctive option for ladies after realising that their choices for eyeglasses were confined to round frames with uninspiring styles.

Inspired by the seductive design of the Harlequin masks worn during the Venice, Italy, Carnevale carnival. She imagined a pair of glasses with sharp edges that would draw attention to and enhance the wearer's face. Schinasi persevered in her pursuit despite receiving numerous rejections from big manufacturers who thought her invention was too unorthodox, cutting paper prototypes of her revolutionary design.