🎙️ In this episode of The Fashion Translator, I spoke with Tracy Vontelle Green, Co-Founder & CEO of Vontelle, about what it means to build a brand that solves a problem most people didn’t even know they had.
Vontelle started with a simple, physical frustration: glasses that don’t fit. Frames that press into your cheekbones, temples too short, nose bridges too narrow. Tracy and her co-founder Nancy went to Paris, measured their friends’ noses, drew sketches, and found one manufacturer willing to break the mold — literally.
What makes this conversation remarkable is how Tracy talks about resilience — not as a mindset, but as a series of very concrete decisions: saying yes before you know how, applying for every grant, showing up at the Brooklyn Museum on a Saturday to sell glasses, and pivoting to a government school contract when tariffs wiped out wholesale orders overnight.
We explore:
How a lost pair of glasses and a trip to Paris Fashion Week became the origin of a brand now in 900+ stores across the U.S.
The product complexity behind fit-inclusive eyewear — why breaking the mold wasn’t just a metaphor, it was a literal negotiation with manufacturers
What it looks like to run a business while working a full-time job, managing a health crisis, and shipping orders at 11pm
How Vontelle became the first Black women-owned brand to design for America’s Best — and the first women-owned brand to design for Nickelodeon
The cash flow reality of every channel: wholesale, D2C, retail, and government contracts — and why diversification wasn’t strategy, it was survival
When you build something that actually fits the people who’ve been told to just deal with it, you’re not just building a product. You’re building proof that the market was wrong about who deserved to be served.
✨ Connect with Claire Lys to explore how AI, systems, and innovation can support fashion brands — or to be featured on The Fashion Translator:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/claire-lys-bastien-wald/
Guest:
👤 Tracy Vontelle Green
🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracy-v-green-89793a9/
Brand:
🌐 https://www.vontelle.com/
🔗 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vontelleeyewear
🔗 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@vontelleeyewear
🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/vontelle/
🔗 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/vontelle
🔗 Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/wearevontelle/
