Most often dressed in her trademark oversized black-rimmed glasses and pearl necklace, Donovan was a fixture on the fashion scene for almost 50 years. She began her working life as a designer, but soon moved into writing about fashion, rather than creating it.

She worked at the New York Times from 1955 to 1963 when she left to take up an editor's position at Vogue under Diana Vreeland. She left Vogue in 1972 to become senior fashion editor at rival Harper's Bazaar and moved on to be vice president of communications at Bloomingdale's in 1976. But the world of corporate communications was not for Donovan, who was drawn back to the Times in 1977, eventually becoming deputy editor of the New York Times Magazine.

Amazingly Donovan never mastered the typewriter, let alone the computer, and always wrote her copy by hand.

Though she retired from the Times in 1995, Donovan's working life was far from over. She continued her passion for fashion in a column for Allure magazine, and in 1997 became a spokesperson for hip budget clothing retailer Old Navy. She also returned to the Times Magazine last June as a contributing editor with her "Conversations With Carrie."

Donovan was born in Lake Placid, New York, in 1928. She is survived by her sister, Joan Donovan, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.