Midlife style tips from Norfolk’s most fashionable resident

The influ­encer and author cham­pi­ons vin­tage pieces and dress­ing for joy. Here, she shares her five per­son­al style rules

“A lot of peo­ple prob­a­bly think that my life is nice and neat and tidy and fra­grant,” Paula Sut­ton, the style and home influ­encer turned cosy crime author, says from a sofa in her gar­den office in Nor­folk. “But I’m a whirl­wind of chaos at times.” That may be so – but in Sutton’s world, even the chaos is pic­turesque. Con­sid­er her out­fit: a blue puff-sleeved Doen dress worn with pearl ear­rings, slicked-back hair and red lip­stick. And then the items around her: a tow­er of frill-edged, blue-and-white striped cush­ions, piles of antique crock­ery (with more plates on the walls), bas­kets galore, stacks of inte­ri­or books, a bowl of apples – a thou­sand and one “cot­tagecore” ele­ments ready to be assem­bled into the kind of scene that makes peo­ple con­tem­plate mov­ing to the coun­try­side.

As the tastemak­er behind Hill House Vin­tage on Insta­gram (@hillhousevintage), Sut­ton, 55, has for years inspired some 610,000 fol­low­ers with lay­ing an out­door table, cut­ting tulips from her gar­den and oth­er such scenes of rur­al bliss.

Her life didn’t always look this idyl­lic. Born in Croy­don, Sut­ton recalls being “mes­merised” as she flicked through the first issue of Elle UK with friends on the upper deck of a Lon­don bus. “I thought, ‘I would love to be part of this world.’” She end­ed up work­ing at Elle as book­ings direc­tor for “some of the best years of my life”. Mean­while she and her hus­band, a clas­sic car deal­er, spent week­ends with her in-laws in Nor­folk. Once they had chil­dren, she says: “I craved that peace and qui­et and feel­ing of space.” They moved to a Geor­gian house in West Nor­folk in 2010; she start­ed a blog doc­u­ment­ing her ren­o­va­tion and DIY vin­tage fur­ni­ture upcy­cling short­ly after. The first post was a pic­ture of the house “look­ing like a doll house in the mid­dle of its gar­den”.

The blog gath­ered momen­tum grad­u­al­ly before “going crazy” dur­ing the Covid-19 lock­down. It helped that her imagery encap­su­lat­ed the new­ly aspi­ra­tional mode of coun­try liv­ing that came to be known as “cot­tagecore”. Nev­er mind that the woman the press dubbed “the queen of cot­tagecore” hadn’t heard of the trend. “It was news to me,” she says. “I’ve always been inspired by the past and loved vin­tage style and pret­ty dress­es. But it wasn’t con­trived – I was try­ing to pur­sue hap­pi­ness, doing the things that brought me joy, and it all came across as very pas­toral and bucol­ic.”

Her style “def­i­nite­ly evolved” when she moved to Nor­folk. When she was younger and work­ing at Elle, she fol­lowed run­way trends. “Now I’m not swayed by the shows or trends. I have a dis­tinc­tive sort of vin­tage-inspired style that I know suits me and that I’m com­fort­able with. If some­thing hap­pens to be in fash­ion and aligns with my style, then that’s fan­tas­tic.”

Sut­ton esti­mates that 40 per cent of her wardrobe con­sists of true vin­tage, 20 per cent is things she’s had for years (“it’s my own vin­tage”) and the remain­ing 40 per cent is new. “But it will always have an essence of clas­sic style.” Her dream wardrobe would be every­thing Grace Kel­ly wears in High Soci­ety. Some of her favourite pieces right now are her Ralph Lau­ren jodh­purs (“They remind me of Grace Kel­ly in the 1950s”), a Thier­ry Coul­son striped empire line dress (“It speaks of his­to­ry to me”) and a trove of vin­tage suits from the 1940s that she adores wear­ing in the autumn. Sum­mer is all about Doen and O Pio­neers dress­es.

Last year she added anoth­er string to her bow, as a fic­tion author. Her debut, now in paper­back, The Pot­ting Shed Mur­der, is a cosy mys­tery set in a fic­tion­al vil­lage in (where else?) rur­al Nor­folk. Hero­ine Daphne Brew­ster “is very much me, but far more adven­tur­ous and brave and nosy”. But not, one imag­ines, with such a dreamy wardrobe.

Five personal style rules

• Know the shapes that suit you. I always look at the sil­hou­ette of a dress and can tell if it will work.
• Be kind to your feet! For me that means nev­er wear­ing a pair of shoes over 7cm in the heel.
• Dress to make your­self hap­py. That’s my num­ber-one rule. I don’t dress to be sexy or with regard to what any­one else thinks. I 100 per cent dress for me.
• Match your shoes to your bag in some way. I like that put-togeth­er, matchy-matchy look.
• When in doubt, opt for a red lip. It’s not just to look glam­orous. It’s also a con­fi­dence boost­er.