Elsa Klensch, a pioneer in fashion television, dies age 92

Growing up in a small eastern town in Canada in the mid-eighties and nineties fostered a great love for the outdoors, but fashion and culture were difficult to come by. Here the folks were perhaps more akin to hunting moose than digging Moose Knuckles parkas.

While there was little exciting retail or fashion brands available at the time, save for Benetton, Ralph Lauren and Club Monaco, there was Elsa Klensch and her eponymous series Style with Elsa Klench on CNN, to whet an appetite for fashion.

Klensch was a pioneer in broadcasting fashion and often the first to expose viewers to the intimate world of designers and European luxury brands. This was a time before front row camera phones, paparazzi, influencers, social media and overflowing media pits. Her show debuted in 1980 and ran for a good two decades, well before the digital sphere was to be invented. Klensch was able to communicate fashion to a mainstream audience without losing the mystery and je ne sais quoi of the industry.

Klensch took the viewer backstage

Klensch always had the backstory. While the beautiful runway images ran in glossies such as Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar, Klensch interviewed backstage, running commentary with her inimitable style, often spotlighting designers in her home city of New York. Klensch interviewed all the greats, from Karl Lagereld to Bill Blass, Miuccia Prada to Calvin Klein. Having Klensch film backstage before a show was often thought of as a sign of good luck.

"When we started, maybe for the first five years, we were the only television crew (at fashion shows)," Klensch said on her show in 2000 as reported by CNN. "Designers really didn't understand the concept of television." In her first ever episode Klensch covered a Halston runway presentation and interviewed Andy Warhol, Liza Minelli and Martha Graham, a stellar cast by any comparison.

Klensch was born in Australia and made her way to New York in the 60s, cutting her teeth at WWD, Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar. She died aged 92.