The owner of this house, Sarah, is one of those girls. Her husband Stephen, not so much, but he’s learned to live with it – and I suspect, secretly love it, because this house full of rhinestones, glitter and fluffy sheepskins, with strings of pearls dripping from antique chandeliers, is the physical expression of his wife’s wonderful, vibrant personality.

“My daughter warned her boyfriend before she brought him round for the first time,” says Sarah. “She told him: ‘My mum’s house is her in house form – slightly quirky, to say the least…’ Luckily, it didn’t put him off.”

From the moment you step into the hallway, you know you are in a high-glamour zone. The original plaster archway is painted dramatic black and the chequered floor leads your eye on past the large chandelier – Sarah’s philosophy is that one can never be knowingly over-chandeliered – and up the stairs, to a feature wall papered with black and gold wallpaper designed by Barbara Hulanicki of Biba, with vintage feathered fans and silk kimonos on the wall next to it.

The console table in the hallway contains more hints of what lies within. Next to the large vase of silk flowers are bottles of designer perfume – some for a last-minute leaving the house spritz, others which are past their best for scenting the air and creating a general atmosphere of fabulousness.

And a small notice says (in shiny silver writing, of course): ‘You look fabulous.’

Which would never be a word of a lie with Sarah. She’s a fashion queen – indeed, I met her in the legendary Hastings style emporium that is The Wardrobe.

Here – depending on your luck on the day – you will find original Ossie Clark dresses, next to wardrobe-anchoring MaxMara tailoring, and a new-with-tags Diane von Furstenberg gold sequinned jacket (my best ever find there…) which someone has bought and then decided they didn’t need after all. (I very much did.)

“I’m a clothes person,” says Sarah. “I love glamour and I’m a bit of a magpie for sparkly things. I’ve always liked clothes, dressed nicely, but after my kids grew up and I had a bit more disposable income, I discovered designer clothes and the monster was unleashed – and there’s no putting it back in the box.”

This is clearly apparent in the glory of the house, Sarah’s dressing room, her inner sanctum and a temple to style. She’s taken over a whole bedroom, equipping it with specialist rails from fashion retail fittings supplier Morplan, one of them just to display her extensive collection of white blouses – and had shelves built to house her very impressive handbag collection.

“My handbag passion started with my first serious purchase which was a Vivienne Westwood handbag. Then I discovered Chanel, Dior and there was no stopping me…”

But while the designer names are impressive, this is no display of vulgar extravagance. It’s not about status symbols, rather that Sarah is a connoisseur of style and quality, who has amassed her collection with wit and panache.

A pair of amazing red glitter ankle boots are genuine Yves Saint Laurent, but sitting next to them is an equally fab-looking silver pair – which are from Primark.

On Sarah, worked into an amazing look – which she has the height and presence to pull off – you wouldn’t be able to tell which pieces are the designer real deals and which the chain-store cheap and cheerfuls. Equally, from a distance, you wouldn’t know that her collection of amazing bright-coloured fur pieces is all of the fake, fun variety.

“I buy everything from Topshop to Jean-Paul Gaultier,” she says. “The cleverness is in the mixing. You could go into Gucci and dress yourself from head to toe, but that’s not using any imagination. And a lot of the fun is in the chase of sourcing amazing pieces. It would be boring just to go into a shop in Bond Street and buy it all off the rail.”

Along with the talent to spot the one knock-out thing among the swathes of crud in shops like Primark, Sarah’s shopping secret is her address book of designer second-hand stores, which she visits regularly and has built up relationships with the owners, so they let her know when something special, in her style, comes in.

Then there are pre-loved designer clothing websites, which she can browse from the comfort of home, although these take a little more care.

“I’m very good at researching things if I buy online, I’ve never bought a fake, but you do have to be careful.”

Her other secret, to keep it fun and to hold on to that sense of the chase, is constantly updating and refreshing her trove.

“I do turn things over,” she says. ‘I sell things back through Mel at The Wardrobe, but there are some things I would never part with.

One of these is the ankle length chiffon Jean-Paul Gaultier dress with a print pattern which looks like dollar bills, but they actually say ‘SEX’.

“I like quirky things,” says Sarah, “the weird and the wonderful…”

There is a great example of the latter in the window treatment of the master bedroom, next door to the dressing room. Sarah found the apricot and gold lamé fabric in the amazing vintage haberdashery Wayward in Norman Road, St Leonards.

“It was from the same bolt used to make a coat for Meryl Streep in the movie ‘Florence Foster Jenkins’,” says Sarah. “I have an amazing curtain maker and I asked her to do the tops ruched into puffballs. She asked me how big I wanted them and I said, ‘Well, they can’t be too big…’. Each one took loads of fabric.”

Then, by happy chance, she came across the perfect bed cover to go with them – on sale in Debenhams, showing how her approach to clothes shopping, mixing vintage and designer with chain store, works just as well for homewares as it does for fashion.

As is shown by the successful combination of the mirror over the mantlepiece from TK Maxx and an antique kimono sourced on line.

The same approach is in glorious evidence down in the living room, a scheme in white, cream, sheepskin – and lots of glitter – Liberace himself would have appreciated. And with a detail another of Sarah’s icons, Mr Elvis Presley, would have appreciated: a cream leather La-Z-Boy reclining armchair.

“My husband hates the sofa,” says Sarah, “but he’s American and I knew he would secretly love a La-Z-Boy, so I decided to get him one. I went to Bexhill and found this one in a charity shop for £35.”

She then Sarah-ised it by popping on a luscious sheepskin, one of many in the room.

“I’ve got a flock of sheep,” she says, laughing. “They’re so comfy to sit on and so warm. I’ve bought them from Dunelm, boot fairs…’

Picking up the fluffy white theme is a magnificent pair of squiggly wiggly 1960s ceiling light fittings, one in the sitting room and the other in the adjacent dining room in the knocked-through space, which Sarah found in the Antiques Warehouse in Hastings Old Town High Street.

“We went in looking for wardrobes and I spotted them hanging up. When my husband wasn’t looking I went over and had my name put on them… It was a done deal without involving Stephen.”

And it turned out she was right to jump at them: “They were the key to decorating this whole room, everything else was done around them.”

Two more standout pieces are the prints of Elvis and Blondie, in ornate white frames, which hang on either side of the exposed brick chimney breast – and are lavishly enhanced with glitter. Sarah made them herself.

“I saw a fabulous glitter Elvis in an exhibition at the Dragon Bar in George Street in Hastings,” she explains. “I wanted it so much, but it was £2,500, so I thought I would go for it myself. I bought the print at Posters Online for £6, got some glue and a pot of glitter and that was it. I already had the frames. I buy old ornate frames whenever I see them, so I always have some ready to go. I painted these white.”

In the adjoining dining room there is another feature print of an icon: a giant photograph of Marlene Dietrich on the wall behind the dining table.

“I bought a card of that portrait for my daughter and I loved it so much, I commissioned it online as an oversize print. I was going to have it cover the whole wall, but then I decided to rein it in a bit.”

Which is somewhat out of character – and not something that came into play when Sarah and Stephen recently made over their kitchen. From a distance it appears to be a simple all-white treatment. Once you get up close, you see that the worktops are in a sparkly finish, there is glitter in the paint on the walls – and the handles on all the units are packed with Swarovski crystals.

Even the kettle and toaster are in the theme, being from the shiny, white, pineapple-faceted De Longhi collection. Completing the look are oversized shiny, ceramic floor tiles, which Sarah was prepared to pay over the odds for.

“For some reason, as soon as you want bright white, rather than cream, the price shoots up,” she says. “But we found these online and the tiler advised me to use black grout to really set off the white and the shine, and I love it.’

And just in case, being in such a practical part of the house, you should forget for a moment that you are in a realm of supreme domestic va va voom, hanging on the wall is an Elvis clock – white jump suit Vegas period, of course – with legs that swing in time with the ticking. A treasure picked up on a visit to Graceland.

Which, if Sarah and Stephen ever felt like giving their own house a name, would be a good inspiration. A sign by the front door saying ‘Glamourland’ would be just the thing to do it justice.

RA Hayward & Son upholsterer Hastings 01424 423332

Siren 58 Norman Road, St Leonards

Teresa’s Fabrics curtain maker 01424 422001

Twentieth Century Funking Junk 8 Courthouse Street, Hastings 07916 335434