Some inventions begin with grand visions. Others begin in heartbreak. This one begins with inconvenience — the small kind that reveals a much larger truth. On this week’s episode of the Unfiltered podcast, we learned more from Tracy Vontélle Green.
When Tracy lost her favorite pair of glasses in 2019, she expected to replace them easily. Instead, she found herself trying on frame after frame that pinched, slid, pressed, or simply didn’t fit her face. What should’ve been a quick errand became a mirror held up to an industry that was not designed with her in mind.
That moment that was trivial to some, but transformative to her, became the seed of Vontélle Eyewear, the luxury eyewear brand now reshaping how we think about fit, style, and representation.
In this powerful episode, Tiffany Whitlow sits down with Tracy not just to talk eyewear, but to explore how necessity, culture, and discomfort can become a movement.
The Aha Moment: Realizing the Industry Never Saw Us
Tracy recalls the frustration vividly. Glasses that dug into her temples. Nose pads that left permanent dents. Frames that caused headaches after a full day of wear.
“You need your glasses”, she says. “They’re a medical necessity. But you shouldn’t be in pain from wearing them”.
She called her business partner, Nancy, to complain, only to discover Nancy’s mother had been told to use salicylic acid on the dents left by her glasses. The problem wasn’t personal. It was systemic. Nancy called back two weeks later with a sentence that shifted both their lives:
“Pack Your bags. We’re Going to Paris”
In the middle of Paris Fashion Week, they walked an eyewear expo for three days, searching for frames that reflected their features — their cheekbones, their nose bridges, their fullness. They found none. Not one brand, not one booth, not one manufacturer designing with their faces in mind.
“This is why glasses hurt”, Tracy remembers realizing. “No one who looks like us is making them”.
What many see as fashion, Tracy saw as exclusion. What many saw as style, she saw as access. She and Nancy pushed manufacturers to adjust measurements — and were told no over and over again. Too narrow. Too short. Too tight. That’s “just the mold”.
They refused to accept that mold. Eventually, they found one manufacturer willing to listen, experiment, and create something entirely new.
Five years later, Vontélle stands as the answer to a question the industry never bothered to ask: What happens when eyewear actually fits our faces?
Designing Frames That Tell Our Stories
Vontélle’s frames are more than functional; they are expressive, bold, and rooted in heritage. Tracy speaks with pride about the stories embedded in each collection — vibrant textiles from African and Caribbean cultures, collaborations with iconic artists, frames named with intention and cultural memory.
She shares one of her latest partnerships with the Romare Bearden Foundation, placing his legendary artwork “The Block”, displayed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, onto frames. It’s art that doesn’t just hang on walls. It sits on faces, carried into rooms where culture has often been muted or minimized.
With every partnership, she reframes representation not as a buzzword, but as a design principle. Tiffany puts it beautifully: “You didn’t just create frames. You reframed representation”.
When Vision Becomes a Health Equity Conversation
The episode widens into a deeper truth: vision is not just about sight. It is about access, learning, confidence, and lifelong well-being. Poor vision impacts how children learn, how adults work, and how communities move through the world.
Yet many people, especially in communities of color, are wearing glasses that simply do not fit. The discomfort becomes just another thing we learn to “push through”, without questioning why solutions weren’t built with us in mind.
Tracy makes it plain: “Everything we use, your toothbrush, your iPhone, your bag, someone designed it. So why not eyewear that actually fits our faces”?
Today, Vontélle can be found in 900 stores nationwide, a testament to how far that lost pair of glasses has carried her. Partnerships with America’s Best, Sam’s Club, Saks, and even iconic figures like Kadeem Hardison show that the world is finally catching up to a truth she already knew: our features deserve to be centered, not adjusted to fit someone else’s mold.
A Health Scare That Changes Everything
Just as Vontélle was coming to life, Tracy’s own life nearly slipped away.
Four months after Paris, she went into a diabetic coma while traveling, eventually being diagnosed with latent autoimmune diabetes in adults (Type 1.5) — a rare form of diabetes that requires meticulous daily management.1
At the time, she was a CFO of a hospital system, running on fumes, skipping meals, living on M&M’s and meetings, driving herself into the ground in the name of ambition. That coma cracked something open. Her body forced her to listen.
“I realized that job was killing me because I never prioritized my health,” she shares. She began building new habits from the ground up: morning workouts, intentional meals, shutting down social media at night, protecting her sleep, and setting boundaries around her time, especially as an entrepreneur.
It is one of the most heartfelt parts of the episode, especially as Tiffany offers her own vulnerability about struggling to make space for self-care while juggling motherhood, leadership, and constant digital demands.
Their honesty reminds listeners that health equity must begin with the equity we give ourselves.
The Power of Partnerships, Persistence, and Purpose
Tiffany asks Tracy how Vontélle has landed so many partnerships so early. Tracy laughs and answers honestly: “We asked. We followed up. We kept going until someone said yes”.
She talks about the courage to reach out, again and again, not taking silence as rejection but as a sign of busy people who need reminders. She encourages founders to send the pitch deck, talk about their brand openly, and tell the truth about what sets them apart.
“If you don’t brag on yourself,” she says, “nobody else will”.
Their conversation becomes a masterclass in how minority-led brands can wedge themselves into industries that never carved out space for them. It also becomes a meditation on celebration. Not just grinding. Not just survival. But joy. Community. Marking the wins so you don’t forget how far you’ve come.
Framing the Future Together
In one of the episode’s most exciting moments, Tracy and Tiffany dream aloud about partnering with HBCUs, especially those in Alabama, to collect real facial measurements, prescription data, and feedback that will help Vontélle design even more inclusive frames and lenses.
It’s the perfect marriage between Vontélle’s mission and Acclinate’s — using community-driven data to build products that honor the diversity within Black and Brown faces, not flatten them.
What started with a pair of missing glasses is now shaping a future where eyewear does not just correct vision. It reflects identity.
Why This Episode Matters
This episode is not just about entrepreneurship. It’s about listening to what your life is trying to tell you; the whispers, the nudges, the annoyances that eventually reveal your calling. It’s about trusting the problems you face, because sometimes they point you toward the solution you were born to create.
It’s about refusing to shrink yourself to fit someone else’s mold, and instead building something big enough to hold your community.
And above all, it’s about vision; the kind that sees possibility where others see inconvenience.
Join the Movement
Unfiltered is more than a podcast. It’s a space where Black and Brown stories are centered, honored, and amplified.
A place where health, culture, and community converge.If Tracy’s story moved you, share it. If it inspired you, act on it. And if it reminded you that your vision matters, keep listening.
Next week’s episode continues the journey.
References:
- Rajkumar V, Levine SN. Latent Autoimmune Diabetes. StatPearls Publishing; 2020. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK557897/
