A great-grandmother’s influence inspires new Albany boutique

ALBANY — The giant pink azaleas painted on the bright white facade of Millie’s are a tribute to a woman who taught Sydney Kate Tye how to dress, how to work and how to care for people. Inside, a couch that belonged to Millie Daughtrty and her husband is part of the plan for a store built around relationships — past, present and future.

Tye’s great-grandmother Millie inspired the name of the women’s boutique, which is set to open its Albany storefront at 1 p.m. Sunday. After more than a year of selling online, Tye is giving the business a physical home, with furnishings and clothing selections shaped by the woman she hopes to honor.

“She taught us everything of what it means to be a woman when it comes to dressing, when it comes to loving, to caring,” Tye said.

The grand opening will include giveaways, sweets and a visit from the TCBY truck. Tye said the first 25 people in line will receive custom Millie’s crewnecks, with additional gifts given away at random. She also plans to introduce clothing her established online customers have not seen before.

The grand opening of Millie’s, at 2818 Old Dawson Road, caps months of planning and curating an intentional, unique shopping experience on one of the busiest streets in Albany.

Regular hours are expected to be 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Saturday, with possible extended hours for holiday shopping. Online sales will continue alongside the storefront.

“I can’t wait to see everyone’s reactions as to what it looks like,” Tye said. Showing customers the finished space after months of preparation is among the things she is most looking forward to on opening day.

For Tye, the opening arrives sooner than she first imagined. She launched the online business in August 2025 and expected to spend a couple of years developing it before opening a store.

Then an acquaintance who was buying into the shopping plaza called about an available space. He had a rendering of what the building could look like, including flowers painted on the exterior.

Tye said she received the call around May and made the arrangement official in June or July. After some time thinking and praying, she let the opportunity change her timetable and began preparing a storefront while continuing to run the business she had built from scratch.

Tye said her faith helped her make that decision and carried her through the uncertainty of getting the space ready. As opening day approached, unfinished work made her question whether everything would come together in time.

A friend reminded her to trust the process. Tye said a fire inspector arrived earlier than she expected and gave his approval, and over the next several days other pieces unexpectedly fell into place.

Tye is no stranger to entrepreneurship. Her interest in owning a business grew from watching her parents run their own companies. Her father’s work with vehicles showed her a way to take care of people through everyday needs, while her mother combined entrepreneurship with an appreciation for dressing well.

“I was raised by entrepreneurs,” Tye said. “So I think I always knew I wanted to be my own boss. I grew up watching my dad take care of people.”

Inspired by her upbringing, Tye knew she wanted to work for herself and help people, but she suspected more traditional paths to serving the community, such as medicine or law, were not for her. Retail offered a way to bring her interests together.

She managed two boutiques before starting Millie’s. Tye said she has worked in retail since she was 16 and was interested in clothing long before that, beginning with outfits her mother paired with matching bows.

“Maybe I could do this for myself,” she said, recalling the realization that followed her management experience.

Her goal now is to create a store where women feel comfortable asking for help, looking around and trying things on. She recognizes that shopping can be difficult for women who feel uncomfortable with their appearance or struggle with confidence, and above all she wants the experience to feel welcoming.

That thinking extends to the building itself. Tye described her vision as a dream walk-in closet, with a seating area for people accompanying shoppers and a customer restroom, a rarity, Tye says, among Albany boutiques.

Much of the furniture came from antique stores, estate sales and Facebook Marketplace. Friends and family in the community built other pieces specifically for the shop.

A fencing company made custom gold-colored clothing racks. A friend built wooden racks and checkout counters. Tye found armoires, tables and couches secondhand, choosing pieces that fit the atmosphere she wanted to create.

One couch has a more personal history: It belonged to her great-grandparents, and her father grew up with it in their house. At the time of the interview, Tye said, a second matching couch belonging to the business’s namesake was being re-covered for the store also.

The couches helped inspire her approach to furnishing the boutique. She wanted pieces with character and a story of their own, and she was struck by the quality of older furniture she found while shopping.

Tye says her design influences include Ralph Lauren and J.Crew. The store’s brown-and-cream branding is meant to keep the online identity and the physical space connected, so customers familiar with Millie’s will recognize the business when they walk inside.

The clothing follows a similar approach. Asked to describe the style, she settled on three words: classic, timeless and elevated.

Tye says she intends to stock jeans, sweaters and tops that customers can carry from one season of their lives into the next, and looks for high-quality craftsmanship when choosing which lines to carry. Her own family is a test of that idea: Tye, her mother and her grandmother all wear pieces from the business, she said.

“My goal for Millie’s is not just to cater to teenagers and young girls,” Tye said. “I think it’s important that we can carry clothes through different seasons of our own lives. As an example, I wear what I sell. My mom is 44, and she also wears things from here. My grandmother is 83, and she wears things from here, too.”

She does not want older women to walk in and assume there is nothing for them. A good pair of jeans or a sweater can appeal across generations without depending on a short-lived trend, she said. She said she hopes pieces customers buy one season will outlast cheaper alternatives season after season.

Her fashion references include Carolyn Bessette Kennedy and Princess Diana, but she makes room for playful pieces, choosing versions of current trends she believes customers can keep wearing.

As an example, Tye described zebra-print dresses she sold in a previous season. Two customers later wore the dresses to separate weddings on the same weekend, reinforcing her belief that a trendy print can outlast its moment when the design is restrained.

Tye says she plans to offer a range of price points, including premium denim, and said durability matters in the pieces she buys. Her aim is for clothing to hold up beyond a few wears, whether it comes from the higher or lower end of the store’s price range.

The storefront also gives her a different way to connect with customers she first reached online. Tye said orders have gone to Texas and other parts of the country, allowing the business to reach beyond Albany before it had a retail location.

She said she plans to give both sides of the business attention, treating them almost as separate operations, hoping  online orders and store traffic can balance each other when one slows.

Starting online also gave Tye time to introduce herself and establish the look of Millie’s. Customers who already know the brand, she said, have an idea of what to expect from the space.

Still, the relationships she hopes to build are personal. Tye wants to know when customers are getting married, hear about their grandchildren and greet familiar faces when they come through the door.

“I want my customers to become my friends, too,” she said. “I want to grow with the people I serve.”

Some of her husband’s friends have asked when she will add men’s clothing, encouragement she found amusing as they helped move things into the store. For now, her focus remains establishing the women’s business and getting to know the people who shop there.

Her great-grandmother’s influence runs through those plans. Tye said Millie Daughtry helped raise her and her cousins, passing along lessons about caring for others as well as presenting themselves well.

To Tye, Millie’s favorite pink azaleas on the building and the family furniture being readied for a new purpose are reminders that relationships rooted in loving the people you serve can shape the course of a life.

As she readied the shop, Tye pointed to a photograph of Millie in her 20s, the same decade of life Tye is navigating as she builds her business. Remembering her great-grandparents, she said, gives her something to hold on to when the work becomes difficult.

“They loved us hard,” Tye said. “They made us into who we are today.”

For Tye, building her business means carrying that legacy of care into relationships new and old when her doors open Nov. 1.