Millie's International Creations: Handmade African Designs That Give Back

Some brands sell products. Millie's International Creations sells work you can trace back to the hands that made it.

Founder Penny Clarke was born and raised in Monrovia, Liberia, and moved to the United States at sixteen for college. A 2015 visit to Langa Township in Cape Town, South Africa, changed her direction: she saw women creating beautiful work with very few ways to sell it. Millie's was her answer, a boutique that helps women build livelihoods through their craft. She named it after her late mother, Mildred.

Original designs, made by hand

Nothing at Millie's comes from a catalog. Penny sources in person from jewelers, designers and leather makers across Africa, so each collection reflects the artisan behind it. You will find cowrie shells, brass, stone, bone, raffia, Ankara prints and hand-worked leather, often in combinations you will not see anywhere else.

A few pieces customers come back for:

• The Kwavi Cowrie Necklace and the Sahara Heritage Necklace, statement jewelry with deep roots.
• The Majestic Leather Collection, handmade leather bags and accessories.
• Ankara dresses, chokers and denim and Ankara bags that bring African prints into everyday style.

Quality you can feel

Because every piece is made by hand from natural materials, it carries a weight and character that mass-produced fashion does not. These are pieces made to be worn often and kept for years, not thrown out after a season.

A community that keeps it going

Millie's is powered by a loyal community of customers across the United States who wear these designs proudly and share them with friends. And the impact travels both ways: part of every sale supports women-led nonprofits around the world, on top of the income it brings to the artisans themselves.

From $5K to $50K a month

That community has grown fast. When Millie's started working with BlackAds, the boutique was doing about $5,000 a month in sales. Today it brings in around $50,000 a month, ten times where it began, through online sales funnels and paid ads aimed at the customers most likely to love these designs.

Early in that growth, Penny put it this way: “Edwin Jardin helped me build a sales funnel that increased my revenue by 500%. My company gets sales every single day, and keeping up with inventory is now my biggest challenge.”

Support Millie's

Looking for a gift that means something, or a statement piece for yourself? Shop the full Millie's collection or start with the jewelry. Every order supports a woman artisan, a Black-owned business, and the nonprofits Millie's backs.