Single mum who hated her pregnancy belly set up her own maternity fashion business on eBay and now makes £1m a year – The Sun

A SINGLE mum who set up an online clothing business from her spare room now makes £1 million a year.

Monika Milcarz Clark, 42, was inspired by her struggles during pregnancy to create better clothing for expectant and new mums.

The mum to Maria, who recently turned 13, launched clothing business Happy Mama from her spare bedroom in 2010 – making £40,000 in her first year.

Monika, from Hammersmith, now has plans to take her business global, focusing her efforts into digital sales as well as opening an online store in her home country, Poland.

But despite her success, Monika, who married fiancé Clifford Clark earlier this year, "struggled to make ends meet" and she faced losing her house before launching her clothing company.

Monika was facing an uncertain future after her restaurant, in West London, slowed down leaving her with mounting bills at the height of the recession nearly a decade ago.

 

Aged 31 and with a three-year-old to look after, she decided she needed a career change and so left the restaurant behind, looking for other ways to make money.

She began selling maternity clothes and nurse wear on eBay, making £40,000 in her first year.

Monika told the Mirror: "I started selling cheap jewellery and accessories, but soon after I found suppliers of ladies clothing in Poland (where I originally come from), and I started importing it to UK and selling through eBay.”

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Monika said that being pregnant and becoming a new mum is an “exciting” time, but the clothes she found didn’t reflect that.

The mum-of-one wanted to create “beautiful, feminine and comfortable” clothes, at reasonable prices.

Monika said: "I was disappointed when I was pregnant that I was unable to find clothes that reflected how good I felt."

Two years after setting up the business, she says her house looked like “a warehouse”, and she decided it was time to expand.

As the company grew she liaised directly with suppliers in Poland, sending design ideas back to her home country to be made.

Describing how the business grew, Monika recalled: “I remember I sold £100 worth of products on the first day, the second day it was £200, third day £300 and so on, it was growing very quick and within a short period of time our sales went to about £2,000 a day just through eBay.”

She said their unique selling point is making outfits for breastfeeding, which saw sales soar after they focused on this specialism.

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Monika’s mum and sister began helping her as sales skyrocketed, and Monika now employs 15 women, with her new husband also joining the business.

She is in charge of designing all the new pieces, sampling and testing them herself, before ordering production.

Monika is also presiding over the growth of the business, with the first advert for Happy Mama set to be screened on ITV this Christmas.

 

Meanwhile this matchmaker has revealed the 10 items of clothing which will make you look ‘cheap’.

In more fashion news, Love Island's Molly-Mae Hague has denied recycling old PrettyLittleThing designs for her new collection – after fans claim she just "slapped her name on for £500k".

Plus fashion bloggers are obsessed with Nobody's Child's £35 star print midi dress – and it's also available as a jumpsuit.

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