Elsa Klensch, the longtime fashion correspondent, has died aged 92

According to the channel, Elsa Klensch, who brought fashion news to global television audience for two decades, has died in New York.

Clench hosted the weekly series Style with Elsa Klensch from 1980 to 2001. She travels to important fashion centers worldwide, bringing out trends also designers every Saturday morning. "Style" became one of CNN's most famous programs in its early years, and Klensch became one of the channel's trademarks, significantly as the channel's international reach expanded.

Clench provided an in-depth account of dedicated fashion followers in an era before social media and bloggers when industry consumer coverage was mainly reserved for monthly glossy magazines. Television network newsrooms reflect fashion but lack the time CNN could offer as a 24-hour news service from the 1980s onwards.

Over the years, Clench was the sole television reporter for many fashion shows, increasing her status and giving her better access to big names as coverage of the industry became wider.

Designers such as Miuccia Prada, Mark Jacobs, Karl Lagerfeld, and supermodels such as Naomi Campbell and Christy Turlington took part in interviews with Clansch. In addition, journalists covering fashion today cite Clench as inspiration.

The New Yorker said Klensch reported on design developments, fabric innovations, and edge changes in 1999 as if it were reporting on the State Department.

Born Elsa Auschbacher outside Sydney, Australia, Klensch began her journalism career in London in the 1960s. She started as a freelance job writer for Women's Wear Daily. While hardworking in Hong Kong, she met her husband, journalist Charles Clansch, then head of ABC News' Saigon bureau. They engaged in Vietnam in 1966.

Klensch transfer to New York in the 1970s and worked as a fashion editor for WWD, Vogue, and Harper's Bazaar. He worked freelance for New York City newspapers until they were shut down by an 84-day strike in 1978, prompting him to try television.

Clench was one of the original cadres of technical correspondents and experts hired by founder Ted Turner when the network declared in 1980 to defend against a possible slow news period.