‘One of my purposes is to uplift and bring comfort’
Paula Sutton created interiors blog Hill House Vintage and wrote a book to go with it.
Inever intended to become an influencer. I dreamed of being an interior designer, but my Caribbean parents didn’t approve. I ended up studying town and country planning at university, but then found my way into the exciting world of fashion after graduating. ended up in the press office of Elite Premier model agency (now separated into two agencies) and rose to head of press, as spokesperson for supermodels such as Naomi Campbell and Cindy Crawford. From there, I became bookings editor at Elle, responsible for organising photoshoots. I enjoyed setting the scene for other people’s creativity, although I secretly longed to explore my own vision.
I loved my job, but it was all-consuming. Turning 40, with my son and twin daughters all under three, it became too much. I felt that I was being an absent mother as well as a stretched employee. So in 2010, my husband and I decided to move from our beloved London to the Norfolk countryside.
I knew we’d done the right thing. Nevertheless, I felt lost. I had given up my career, I was far from my friends and unsure what to do with myself between the hours of 9am and 3pm. So I started blogging. We’d spent all our money buying the house and had hardly any furniture, so I began vintage hunting and documenting my finds on the blog Hill House Vintage.
I started on Instagram in 2013 and really enjoyed the fact that I could finally create images of my own and was having fun revisiting my passion for interior design. My captions started getting longer and longer and it very quickly snowballed into my full-time job. I always say I’m an accidental influencer. Being on social media is something that I was doing while looking for my next career – I didn’t realise this was it.
The account started off being just about the house (though our Labrador-cross Coco would model from time to time), it wasn’t meant to be about me. But I realised that when people can put a face to the words, they’re more comfortable. Followers began sharing their own stories of feeling isolated or how they had come to a head in their career. I was almost an agony aunt. Instagram has been a lifeline for me, too. My mother died just before the first lockdown. I went to the Caribbean to bury her and, when I came back, I threw myself into creating images. It would be me having a picnic on the lawn or leaping around in full skirts. I think it’s a form of therapy. My creativity kept me afloat and for some reason that resonated with people.
I’m proud to set an example to my kids, now 20 and 18, that you can be more than one thing in your career. I’m 53 this year and a lot of my followers are older women who’ve reached a crossroads like I did.
It’s been the most amazing few years – I’ve written a book, I’ve done a fashion collection with Brora, I’ve started magazine columns and written articles. I think one of my purposes is to uplift and bring comfort, to help people smile through hard times, exactly as I did when my mother died.
Follow Paula on Instagram at @hillhousevintage; hillhousevintage.com
I always say I’m an accidental influencer