{"podcast":{"title":"The Fashion Translator","slug":"the-fashion-translator-7762815","podcast_index_feed_id":7762815,"rss_url":"https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/7272337.rss","website_url":"https://clairelysbastienwald.substack.com/podcast","image_url":"https://substackcdn.com/feed/podcast/7272337/255920ba332cb298a041d65742815136.jpg","author":"Claire-Lys Bastien Wald","episode_count":53,"summary":"Behind-the-scenes insights on fashion, manufacturing, and how AI is reshaping the industry—from someone who’s spent 15+ years inside it.","last_synced_at":"2026-07-31T00:18:48.605136+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-fashion-translator-7762815"},"episode":{"title":"Episode 41: Tracy Vontelle Green • Vontelle | Size Matters: Proving the Industry Wrong with Fit-Inclusive Eyewear","slug":"episode-41-tracy-vontelle-green-vontelle-size-matters-proving-the-industry-wrong-with-fit-inclusive-eyewear","published_at":"2026-07-21T13:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-fashion-translator-7762815/episode-41-tracy-vontelle-green-vontelle-size-matters-proving-the-industry-wrong-with-fit-inclusive-eyewear","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-fashion-translator-7762815","url":"https://clairelysbastienwald.substack.com/p/episode-41-tracy-vontelle-green-vontelle","audio_url":"https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/205509158/7fe214197d13233c55bab75f99de0fd0.mp3","summary":"🎙️ 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. ✨ C…","meta_description":"🎙️ 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 s…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":1804,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-fashion-translator-7762815/episodes/episode-41-tracy-vontelle-green-vontelle-size-matters-proving-the-industry-wrong-with-fit-inclusive-eyewear/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-fashion-translator-7762815/episode-41-tracy-vontelle-green-vontelle-size-matters-proving-the-industry-wrong-with-fit-inclusive-eyewear.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}