What do a musician, an optician, and a stylist all have in common? They’re all Regan Freeman. That is, they’re all vocations that gave her the tools she’s wielded to make her Denslow Vintage Eyewear in Nashville’s booming Wedgewood-Houston neighborhood a beacon for stylish Southerners.
“I worked in the optical world for fifteen years, and that’s where my interest in fashion took hold,” Freeman explains. “Once you learn how to recognize quality, style, and fit, you can’t not notice them.” She also noticed that clients often requested vintage frames or brought in thrift store versions to have outfitted with their own prescription lenses. Musical opportunities eventually brought the singer-songwriter to Nashville, where she shifted focus again after becoming a mother. That’s when she spied a family-owned eyewear store closing its doors, and in 2023, she decided to step in to fill the void with Denslow (named after the illustrator of L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, in which Emerald City citizens wear green glasses).
As she developed her inventory, her music experience “subconsciously reminded me to keep things cool and stage-worthy,” she says. To bolster the offerings, she scoured Facebook Marketplace, bought out a dead-stock collection that spanned the fifties through the nineties, and began purchasing abroad from collectors in Italy, Peru, Greece, and Germany. Now, on any given day inside her terra-cotta-hued showroom, you’ll find a range from vintage Cartier and Christian Dior to tortoiseshell pairs from the seventies to BCGs (that stands for Birth Control Glasses, a grandpa-esque, military-issue look coveted by a certain fashion set).
Freeman pairs these old-school frames with fresh lenses that transport them firmly into the present day. “New lenses alone bring the frames a whole new life,” she says. “I draw inspiration for different gradients and colors from modern styles, and sometimes I’ll just feel a strong urge that something needs to be paired with bright blue or another random shade.” The would-be bespectacled may browse Denslow in person, but most book appointments with Freeman to dream up their own frame-lens combos. And her clientele is as diverse as her glasses: Models, tech whizzes, musicians, bartenders, even baby boomers who may have donned these styles the first time around have crossed her threshold.
Freeman especially enjoys working with vintage tortoiseshell frames. “The craftsmanship is stellar, and the shapes are so classic and timeless but still have some oddity about them that makes them true unique gems,” she says. “Many were made in France, but there are a couple of American brands, like Victory Optical and Liberty Optical, that are equal in their quality and style. It’s incredible to me that a frame from the forties can still have so much life left.”
That’s part of why her shop has resonated with Southerners, too. “The South has a great appreciation for heritage brands and a level of craftsmanship that you can’t get just anywhere,” she says. “I carry a lot of frames by U.S. companies, like American Optical and Bausch + Lomb. Much like this region, these brands have a rich history.”
When she isn’t styling specs, Freeman keeps tabs on the zeitgeist. She’s eyeing late summer to debut a line of eyewear chains with the fine-jewelry designer Minnie Lane, a nod to Chanel’s embracing of the retro accessory over the decades. “We want to create things that feel genuine,” she says. “People are always delighted when they stumble upon our space, and continually compare it to a bygone era in Nashville.”
Haskell Harris is the founding style director at Garden & Gun. She joined the title in 2008 and covers all things design-focused for the magazine. The House Romantic: Curating Memorable Interiors for a Meaningful Life is her first book. Follow @haskellharris on Instagram.
