The House That Paige Paul Built

On this morning’s commute to work, Paige Paul encountered an unexpected interloper. “Did you see my chicken tried to hop in my car this morning?” she says brightly as we sit in the design workshop at her Dairy Boy offices, surrounded by fabric swatches and mock-ups of planned clothing drops for fall and winter. The 28-year-old had documented the avian encounter on her Instagram stories a few hours ago, and now, ever inspired by her real life, she’s brainstorming ideas for a cross-stitch chicken decal on a rain jacket.

The work table is scattered with all manner of quirky samples and sketches, including a camouflage hat embroidered with a shrimp cocktail and underwear emblazoned with “I love beer” and “I love sports.” These offbeat elements are Paul’s favorite details to ideate — the goofier, the better. “Sometimes people don’t realize how unserious I am,” she says. “I like when the brand can showcase that.”

Dairy Boy’s HQ in Westport, Connecticut, is an airy, cottagecore paradise, replete with wood paneling, primary colors, and ample open space. I feel like I’ve entered the brick-and-mortar version of the world that Paul (until very recently Paige Lorenze) works hard to curate on social media: a peaceful East Coast farm life, where coziness abounds and serenity is just one home-cooked garden meal away. That work has built her an audience of nearly 2.5 million combined across Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, and taken her from influencer to entrepreneur, as the founder of a preppy Americana lifestyle brand all her own.

For our interview, Paul is all dewy skin and simple makeup, wearing a tailored white button-up shirt and baggy low-rise denim. It’s been just three weeks since her July 14 wedding to professional tennis player Tommy Paul, held at Old Westbury Gardens in Long Island. Maybe Paul’s glow can be attributed to the microneedling and lymphatic facials she’d been doing in preparation, or maybe it’s the result of her unfailing commitment to SPF, which began years before her engagement last summer. “My biggest beauty tip is keeping my face out of the sun and hydrating,” she says, conceding that she’s not totally immune to the siren call of UV rays. “I get it on my body because I need it. I’m like a solar panel.”

The big day was chronicled in Vogue — a decision Paul felt nervous about, despite her openness to sharing her life online. “There’s discourse around people that even do Vogue weddings, which is valid. If you don’t want people to talk about your wedding, don’t share your wedding content,” she says. “I just felt this protectiveness around it because it wasn’t a brand activation or a marketing campaign. This was my real life.” She’s been relieved by the (mostly) positive response. “I saw one comment being like, ‘I don’t even like Paige, but her wedding was beautiful.’ And it made me laugh because I was just like, ‘Honestly, f*ck yeah.’ That was the biggest compliment I could have gotten.”

Despite today’s effortless-seeming glam, Paul says her pre-nuptial beauty strategy didn’t pan out exactly as planned. “I was on my period and breaking out at my wedding,” she tells me, settling in on a green plaid couch. But the wrench of reality helped her put the big day into perspective. “It was weirdly a pressure reliever. I think if my skin was absolutely perfect and I had one zit, I would have freaked out more,” she says, “but I was completely breaking out on my neck and jaw, and I was just like, ‘Whatever.’ I used makeup, and you couldn’t even tell.”

“I feel like now the brand is big enough and I’ve done enough work where I don’t need to prove anything to anyone.”

Don’t be fooled by the laissez-faire attitude — Paul has packed a million things into her summer: She’s shot collabs with Clinique and Frankies Bikinis, started a Substack to share essays and recipes, and opened her flagship Dairy Boy storefront on Nantucket. “It’s been crazy, and it hasn’t slowed down,” she says. “But I’ve honestly never felt more like myself or more confident. I feel like all of the work that I’ve done for the past 10 years has accumulated to this point.”

Paul’s not exaggerating when she says it’s been a decade. Her social media career took off when she was a college student, living in New York while studying at Parsons School of Design. In 2020, she started posting on YouTube and gaining momentum as an influencer while the tabloids kept up with her starry personal life. The next year, she launched Dairy Boy, putting an aesthetic stake in the ground with her move to Connecticut in 2022.

Paul’s lifestyle looks idyllic and peaceful online — slow mornings in the claw-foot tub, homemade lattes with maple syrup, and eggs collected from her chicken coop — and she adamantly believes that she’s not just selling a fantasy. “I’ve literally built my life to be able to live in that feeling,” she says. “It comes first with me creating a space that I love to live in, creating a kitchen I love to cook in, creating a garden that I love to be in, creating an office that I love to come to. I built all those things. It’s true to who I am, but that’s not to say that it’s not a lot of work.”

“I avoid having larger conversations online because there’s no conversation anymore. It’s black or it’s white, and that’s what it is.”

She’s been intentional about carving out ways to slow down her brain, too. Paul’s screen time is lower than her husband’s, she says — “I think people would be shocked by it” — and she avoids TikTok whenever she can. “It’s my least favorite platform. I think that it can be very damaging,” she says. “Put it this way: I’m not letting my kids have a TikTok. I’m honestly probably not going to let my kids have social media until they’re like 16. I’m giving them BlackBerrys. I wish I could use a BlackBerry, to be honest.”

Paul credits this mentality with a strong sense of self, and a craving for nuance in a world of endless hot takes. “I know who I am and the life I want to live,” she says. “I’m so rooted in my everyday real life and real people that I can realize that social media is just social media. If you know me, I have very strong opinions about things, and I support and have constant conversations with people in my community. I generally avoid having larger conversations online because there’s no conversation anymore. It’s black or it’s white, and that’s what it is.”

When she does weigh in, people listen. In late July, Paul found herself embroiled in some surprising Nantucket island drama, originating — of all places — from a local antiques and crafts shop a few blocks away from her Dairy Boy store. “The root of it all is really hysterical. It’s like Dairy Boy versus baskets,” she says, amused. When Four Winds Craft Guild posted a “No Influencers” sign that went viral two months after she’d opened the doors to her shop around the corner, she initially laughed at the irony. “The store was influencing with their ‘No Influencer’ sign. I actually do think they were making a joke. I never thought that the sign was 100% serious,” she says. “But I was sort of like, when it’s an industry full of women, what’s the punchline of this joke?”

“It’s so much easier to think ‘They’re all jealous and they’re all wrong.’ But staying open to criticism and love is important.”

Paul posted a comment on the shop’s Instagram, challenging them to consider their criticism of a profession that has “given some women a lot of economic power,” she tells me. “I’m good with being the spokesperson for this amazing industry that has completely flipped marketing upside down.” She agrees content creators should be mindful in public and retail spaces. “I’m sure there are people who have been obnoxious. If you’re not acting with respect in stores, act respectfully,” she says. But still: “I don’t think that’s why they put up the sign.”

Paul understands that her Dairy Boy store may be an adjustment for older locals on the island — a social-led brand attracting Gen Z customers who are willing to wait in lines down the block. “I think that people don’t understand what it means to have a community online and how powerful that is,” she says. Still, as someone who has been coming to Nantucket since she was 6 years old — a native New Englander, she grew up in Connecticut, not far from her current residence, and went to boarding school in Vermont — she gets frustrated by the insinuation that she is an outsider trying to fundamentally change the place. “The store is a love letter to the island. Nantucket has literally made me who I am,” she says. If she helps introduce it to a new demographic, so be it.

Basket drama aside, Paul has outgrown her need to please everyone. “A year ago, maybe I would’ve taken these types of conversations more personally. But I feel like now the brand is big enough and I’ve done enough work where I don’t need to prove anything to anyone,” she says. “I’m grateful to be a part of conversations where people agree or disagree because it means that I’ve built something that’s worth talking about.”

She’s also just older and wiser. “When you’ve been in the public eye for as long as I have, because you’re constantly subjected to good and bad opinions about your life, there can be a point where you’re criticized so much that you become almost defensive about your flaws,” she says. “You don’t want to admit that you f*cked something up because you’re already getting that so much from other people, so you can get in denial about things you’re wrong about or need to work on. It’s so much easier to think ‘They’re all jealous and they’re all wrong.’ But staying open to criticism and love is important.”

As she settles into newlywed life and summer turns to fall, Paul is looking forward to more Dairy Boy activations and store openings, going on tour with her husband, and even designing clothes related to events like January’s Australian Open. (Koala decals are involved.) She’s also continuing to curate cozy routines, share beauty tips, and weigh in with her POV when the mood strikes her.

Her ability to pick and choose is a bit of a victory lap for Paul. “I think rooting yourself in being an individual and standing 10 toes down on who you are is so important,” she says. “It’s pretty insane how social media has afforded me all of these opportunities.” By now, the afternoon sun is streaming into the office, casting light on the rows of colorful fleeces while Paul’s brother’s French bulldog stops by our work table to greet us. “If you’re willing to play the game and do the thing,” she adds, “you can really build your dream life.”

Top image credit: Area clothing.

Makeup provided by Clinique.