Mia Djari (née Miriam Bernstein) was born in 1884 (or 1885) in Mogilev, Russia, to an Ashkenazic Jewish family of tailors. While Mia was still an infant, the Bernsteins fled the Pale of Settlement and relocated to London's East End at Spitalfields.

Mia was an adolescent, working as a seamstress in the workroom of a women's clothier, when her parents died of pneumonia. Mia found herself unable to survive on her meager wages alone.

Destitute, she turned to the theatre and found that her alluring figure, charm, and effortless grace made her a popular burlesque attraction. Mia made her own costumes and refined her act, as Mia Djari, performing danse du ventre and stripteases. Because of her lavish costumes and noble, elegant carriage, she was sought after by well-born gentlemen.

In an effort to improve her lifestyle, Mia ventured from burlesque into courtesanship, becoming mistress to certain eminent noblemen, politicians and businessmen in 1902 and 1903. During this time, she found herself living luxuriously in Paris, Vienna, Amsterdam, and Venice. Somewhere along the way she claims to have been married and then widowed.

She returned to the London stage in 1903 and that same year invested in her own millinery in Portobello Road, under the name Miriam Davrincourt (her supposed late husband's name), or "Mia" for short. She barely got by, but her business quickly attracted the attention of The Hon. Elisabeth Montverre-Godwinson, who clandestinely established Baron's Millinery of Bond Street in which she installed Mia as manager. Mrs Davrincourt didn't get rich, but she found Mrs Godwinson's patronage to be a more comfortable way of life.

No one has yet made the connexion between Mia Davrincourt and Mia Djari. Anyone who knows the milliner would not be familiar with the burlesque dancer and vice versa. So far, Mia has flourished in two very different worlds, simultaneously, with great success.