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Elsa Klensch ( Aeschbacher; 21 February 1930 – 4 March 2022) was an Australian and American journalist, novelist, and television personality, often working in the world of fashion.
She was the producer and host of Style with Elsa Klensch, CNN's weekly fashion and design television program, which ran from 1980 to 2001.
Klensch worked at the Sydney Telegraph, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and the Public Information Office of the Territory of Papua and New Guinea. She edited the Hong Kong Trade Bulletin, Women's Wear Daily, and was senior fashion editor at Vogue Magazine, Harper's Bazaar, New York Post, and for WCBS-TV. She hosted and produced Style with Elsa Klensch, which ran from 1980 to 2000 on CNN. After leaving CNN she wrote a series of mystery novels about a television news producer who is caught up in a murder investigation.
With the byline Elsa Barker (she adopted Barker as her professional name because Aeschbacher was difficult for people to pronounce, spell, or remember), she also reported for the London Star and the London Sunday Express.
By 1961, she had returned to Sydney and for the home journey accepted the position of press officer for the S/S Canberra maiden voyage with Pacific ports of call.
Subsequently, she was a regional editor for the Australian Broadcasting's TV Weekly, where she raised circulation and advertising with promotion and livelier editorial content, setting the pattern for a successful national campaign for the magazine which earned her praise for "splendid work and exceptional efforts."
From 1963 to 1964, she was a public relations officer for the Australian administration of Papua and New Guinea, editing a fortnightly newspaper and running a news service.
In 1966, she moved to Hong Kong as editor and Publications Section Chief for the Hong Kong Trade Development Council, responsible for a trade-promotion magazine, as well as organizing and promoting fashion shows and international trade fairs. That same year, she retired from her Hong Kong assignments in order to marry Charles Klensch in Saigon and move to New York where, from 1966 to 1972, she reported for Fairchild Publications. Her last assignment there was as a senior market editor at Women's Wear Daily.
In 1973, she moved to Vogue as a senior fashion editor and writer. In March 1976, she became the senior fashion editor at Harper's Bazaar, and then served as fashion editor of The New York Post.
Her first television assignment was in 1978, when she reported for WPIX in New York City. During the 1978 New York City newspaper strike, local TV stations brought in newspaper columnists to give reports that would not be appearing in print. She appeared on WCBS, and in a coup, persuaded Yves Saint Laurent (who hated being on TV and usually refused requests) to appear with her as a personal favor.
From April 1980 through January 2000, Elsa was host and producer of CNN's Style With Elsa Klensch.
She created Style as a journalistic reflection of her own fashion and design sense. Hers was the first regularly scheduled U.S. television program reporting exclusively on the worlds of fashion, beauty, and design. Its worldwide popularity established her as the preeminent Journalist. Her name became an international byword among fashion and design professionals.
Klensch set the pace for television coverage of fashion. "I always believed that television was a natural outlet for visually exciting design, but in the first days, when I arrived with my crew to cover a show, designers resisted setting aside a place for our camera. All that changed when Style proved how powerful television could be as an international showcase for design."
Based in New York City, Klensch traveled overseas three or four months a year to report from the other fashion capitals of Paris, Milan, Tokyo, and London. She also covered fashion and design from Bali, Beijing, Havana, Madrid, Manila, Moscow, Rio de Janeiro, and Sydney.
The network estimated that over the years her coverage was seen by 200 million viewers worldwide.
She set a goal for herself "I wanted to remain with my program to cover fashion and design into the new millennium."
Although she still had more than two years left on her contract, she decided to leave CNN in 2001, and asked to be released to devote herself to other non-television interests.
After leaving CNN in early 2001, she turned her attention back to writing. She created a monthly jewelry column for the Internet magazine Gem.net, and wrote articles for Elle Decor, House Beautiful, Architectural Digest, and others.
In June 2002, Forge Books, a division of the Holtzbrinck Publishing Group, signed Klensch to write a series of four mystery novels featuring television news producer Sonya Iverson as amateur sleuth.
The first novel, Live at 10:00, Dead at 10:15, was published in hardcover in September 2004, followed by the paperback in 2005. The second, Shooting Script, came out in October 2005. The third, Take Two, was published in December 2007. The fourth, The Third Sin, was published in hard cover in 2014.
In 1994, she made a cameo appearance in Robert Altman's film Ready to Wear (Prêt-à-Porter) and in several episodes of the CBS soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful.
She served on the Kent State University Fashion Department Advisory Board.
New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art acquired the CNN archive of a thousand weeks of Style with Elsa Klensch for its Costume Institute.
Member and former vice president of the Fashion Group International.
Member of The Authors Guild, the Society of Authors (UK), Mystery Writers of America, and Sisters in Crime.
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