Rochelle Barrand is a Lifestyle and Fashion writer for NationalWorld. She began her career in local news, working for other NationalWorld titles like Doncaster Free Press and Sheffield Star. She covered everything from crime and courts to lifestyle and features.
She eventually settled into a focus on human interest stories, and is particularly proud of her City Buzz Shopping page which ran weekly for four years in the Sheffield Star. It enabled her to meet lots of independent shop owners from across the city and helped them to promote their stories with the features she wrote. It was due to her work with this page, and on other community campaigns, that she won JPIMedia Communities Journalist of the Year 2018.
The page also led to the creation of two awards events, which was named the Sheffield Retail Awards and where Rochelle was a judge. She decided that she wanted to be a journalist when she was 10-years-old and went on to gain a first class Journalism BA (Hons) degree from The University of Sheffield in 2014. She was offered her first job with the Doncaster Free Press just before she graduated, at the age of 20, and continues to love her role now.
As her childhood ambition was to be a journalist, she was also extremely happy to be involved in a Sheffield Star community campaign which was aimed at getting more school children engaging with the news. She still has a big interest in fashion and beauty, and also covers anything particularly offbeat and uplifting, with a people angle. She is also a TikTok queen, following all things trends from tradwives to mascara challenges.
Another career highlight was interviewing and meeting fashionista Gok Wan who told her to always be herself. Away from work, she enjoys going on a spa day for a treat and also like to travel when she can - but is also just as happy catching up with loved ones over a cup of tea.
