Rachel Smart
Rachel Smart is a journalist at The Inverness Courier who brings together fashion, small business and community life by focusing on the people behind local brands and events. Her fashion coverage centres on designers, identity and inclusion, while her wider reporting follows how local enterprises and cultural celebrations shape the everyday economy. Her work mixes written profiles, event reporting, photography and audio episodes, giving a rounded view of the local style and business scene.
Local fashion and inclusive brands
Rachel’s fashion reporting is built around individual designers and the values they champion rather than trend lists or runway coverage. In her feature on an Inverness fashion designer launching his own brand, she focuses on what it means to “be yourself” in fashion and how inclusion can be built into a label from the start.
She uses the designer’s story to connect creative ambition with lived experience, treating fashion as a way of expressing identity as much as a commercial venture.
Her approach to fashion stories is conversational and anchored in direct quotes, drawing out why a designer chose their path and how they want customers to feel in their clothes. She emphasises inclusion and authenticity, giving space to designers who frame their work around diversity and self‑expression rather than purely aesthetics or sales.
For communications around new labels, brand launches or campaigns that highlight inclusion and personal storytelling, her coverage aligns with subjects who want to talk about people first and product second.
Small businesses and city centre openings
Rachel regularly covers the fortunes of local businesses, paying attention to new openings and the atmosphere on key shopping streets. Her work includes visual coverage of a new coffee shop teased on Queensgate, where she provides photography that captures the look and feel of the venue before it opens to the public.
In pieces like this, she focuses on what a new business brings to the street, how it fits into the existing mix, and the anticipation it creates among customers.
Her business and retail stories tend to highlight independent operators, hospitality ventures and the small-scale changes that affect how people use the city centre.
She writes about businesses within the wider context of the local economy, but keeps the detail close to the ground: the shopfront, the menu, the owner’s plans and the impact on nearby traders. This makes her a natural fit for stories about openings, refurbishments or brand extensions where the physical presence and customer experience are central.
Community events and seasonal campaigns
Alongside fashion and business coverage, Rachel reports on community events and seasonal campaigns that bring residents together. Her byline appears on a “Santa set for cycle in city” story, where a festive cycling event is used to spotlight charitable activity and local participation.
In these pieces she treats community organisers, volunteers and participants as her main subjects, showing how a themed event - whether a Santa cycle or another fundraiser - builds momentum and support.
Her reporting on such events balances practical detail (route, timing, fundraising goals) with quotes and anecdotes that underline the atmosphere on the day.
She presents these campaigns as part of the fabric of local life rather than one‑off novelties, which suits communications that want to stress continuity, community benefits and engagement rather than pure promotion. Seasonal initiatives, charity drives and public‑facing campaigns are well matched to this style of coverage.
Cultural celebrations and the local economy
Rachel also covers cultural celebrations with a business lens, joining up traditions and the local economy. In a colleague’s account of “Chinese New Year in the Highlands,” she is described as the business reporter responsible for the article, underscoring her role in telling the story of how cultural events play out across restaurants, shops and community groups.
Her work in this area shows how festivals and heritage moments influence trading patterns, hospitality and public life.
These pieces sit at the intersection of culture and commerce, using interviews and scene‑setting to show how celebrations translate into footfall, spending and visibility for different communities. She reflects the voices of organisers and business owners, giving them space to explain both the meaning of the event and its practical impact. Stories that connect cultural or heritage programming with local business outcomes fit strongly with this strand of her work.
Strictly Inverness and fundraising spotlights
Rachel extends her community focus into audio by fronting an episode format that follows contestants taking part in Strictly Inverness 2025, a fundraising dance event. In one instalment she talks to participants Becky Oman and Michael Mackenzie, using interviews to explore their motivations, preparation and experience of the competition.
The episode format lets her move beyond the single news story into an ongoing narrative, following individuals through the event and highlighting the charitable purpose behind it.
Her Strictly coverage blends entertainment and community reporting, treating the contest as both a show and a vehicle for fundraising. She focuses on contestants’ personal journeys, the training process and the community support they receive, which gives a strong human interest angle to an otherwise familiar event template.
Campaigns that revolve around local ambassadors, participant stories and charity outcomes are well aligned with this way of telling the story.
4 more fashion journalists.
Adam Cheung
Adam Cheung is a style writer at British GQ with a specialist focus on sneakers, streetwear and menswear product coverage. He treats sneakers and streetwear as culture and design objects, writing about individual models, new silhouettes and the details that make them stand out. His work spans men’s style, watches and grooming, keeping attention on how people can wear and buy into emerging trends. He produces service-led shopping edits on shoes, bags and accessories, built around clear recommendations and concise reasoning. He covers brands and market trends with an emphasis on wearable takeaways for everyday style and occasion dressing. His British GQ features are republished across international GQ editions, and he runs Typed Hype, an Instazine dedicated to sneaker culture, extending his coverage across mainstream menswear, niche releases and culture-facing commentary.
Alexandra Fullerton
Alexandra Fullerton is a freelance stylist and fashion writer for The Telegraph, known for turning professional styling methods into simple, practical rules for dressing. She covers outfit formulas, wardrobe edits, seasonal dressing, tights, festive knitwear, high-street fashion, smart shopping and investment pieces. Her advice focuses on what to keep, what to buy and how to wear it in real life, rather than fashion news or abstract trends. She draws on a long career as a fashion director and editor at Stylist and Glamour, styling shoots and working with actors, musicians and presenters. She also styles commercial campaigns and individual clients. Fullerton writes fashion books, including guides to everyday dressing and Chanel bags, and runs the My3Words shopping concept based on her three-word method.
Alexandria Dale
Alexandria Dale specialises in turning celebrity style and emerging trends into affordable high street shopping guides. She is Digital Fashion Writer at Cosmopolitan UK, covering fashion news, trend analysis and product-led features. Her beat includes seasonal colours, fabrics, transitional dressing, polished looks on a budget, sustainable fashion and new brands. She finds high street alternatives to luxury pieces and identifies trends worth investing in, with a focus on fit, fabric, versatility and repeat wear. Her guides often centre on one trend or wardrobe staple, with specific buys under a clear price cap. Recent work includes Victoria Beckham-inspired burgundy leather midi skirts, Primark wide-leg trousers, M&S argyle jumpers and Primark home delivery. She has six years of fashion journalism experience across digital and print titles, including Glamour and Ok!, and reports with practical styling advice and product detail.
Alice Reynolds
Alice Reynolds is a writer and production journalist on The Independent’s IndyBest shopping desk who tests accessible supermarket and high-street products in real life. She focuses on fashion, beauty, food and fitness, reviewing supermarket food and drink, protein bars and creatine supplements, and high-street clothing and beauty launches. Her beat spans supermarket staples such as dark chocolate, pizzas, Easter eggs and Greek yoghurt, plus workout snacks and performance supplements, and value-led fashion like viral jackets, wrap skirts and beauty advent calendars. She runs comparative “best of” round-ups that weigh flavour, texture, thickness, quality, price and usefulness, using hands-on trials and taste tests. Her reporting is plain, practical and grounded in repeated supermarket and high-street testing, informed by interests in food, fitness and lifestyle shopping and earlier experience across travel and news formats.