All women who love vintage glasses will own a pair of cat eye prescription glasses, and they are truly iconic styles that last forever.

Joker frame.

Altina Schinasi was born on Manhattan's Upper West Side in 1907, and after an education in the United States, she traveled to Paris as a teenager to study art. It was here that she developed such a passion for the subject that she changed her choice of university to an art school in New York.

Altina graduated and worked as a window dresser for Peter Copeland on Fifth Avenue, where she would work with visionary artist Salvito Dali. It was during this time in her late 20s that she registered a patent for the clown frame. Inspired by the lack of interesting female frames in New York opticians, Altina designed the first prototype of a more glamorous silhouette. Her original look was cut from the romantic and whimsical clown mask she wore at the time for ballroom dancing, and it was from this mask that the cat-eyed look got its first name - the clown.

After initially being questioned by stores, Altina dramatically grew her business in the 1930s, when women across America were voting with their wallets to buy these fun, playfully shaped women's frames. In 1939, Altina was awarded the LordTaylor American Design of the Year Award for her avant-garde design that transformed spectacle frames into appropriate fashion accessories. Vogue and Life magazine praised Schinasi for revolutionizing the eyewear industry and aesthetic.

Altina quit the eyewear industry in the early 40s to continue her other passions, including painting, sculpture, filmmaking, and the anti-fascist and civil rights movements. If you want to know more about this fascinating woman, I highly recommend you check out the documentary titled "Adina" that bears her name.

Fifties: From housewife to movie star.

A housewife with cat-eye glasses.

In the years after the war, the popularity of cat eye frames for prescription lenses soared. Eyewear companies began to really cater to the market for women's frames, adding style elements like diamonds, gold stars and delicate gloss to the tips of frames.

Marilyn and Lauren Bacall in a cat-eye frame.

From movie stars like Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn, to politicians like Shirley Chisholm, career women and stay-at-home moms, everyone loves the cat-eye silhouette, which is often smaller and has a super over-the-top quality.

Sixties: Breakfast at Tiffany's.

It all ended when Audrey Hepburn's character Holly Golightly wore Oliver Goldsmith-designed giant Turtle oversized cat-eye Manhattan sunglasses in the film Breakfast at Tiffany's. Cat-eye sunglasses frames now top the list. Complex, feminine, romantic and alluring all in one, this larger silhouette opens up the cat-eye design to a whole new audience, thanks to the addition of color lenses.

Wild Time.

After becoming popular in the '60s, throughout the' 70s, the eyewear world was covered in stylish large square and round designs made famous by Jackie O. While frames are still produced, they are no longer a staple silhouette on the street, and throughout the 90s and early 2000s, they were associated with your grandma's frame rather than fashion forward!