An editor with insight into world of fashion

Phyllis Dubsky Feldkamp, 96, of Ardmore, a close observer and chronicler of the fashion world, died of heart failure on Oct. 3 at Broomall Presbyterian Village.

In 1996, Mrs. Feldkamp donated her collection of 20th-century French fashion memorabilia to Bryn Mawr College. Among the curiosities were drawings of the gowns and hairstyles worn by Monaco's Princess Grace and daughter Caroline to Caroline's wedding to Philippe Junot in 1978.

Mrs. Feldkamp covered the wedding for the Evening Bulletin, where she was fashion and style editor for 14 years. She joined the Bulletin in 1968. While with the paper, she covered the Paris shows twice a year, as well as the Italian shows. During Fashion Week in New York, she always had front-row seats for herself and a photographer. In 1969, she won the Fashion Reporter of New York (Franny) Award.

At the Bulletin, Mrs. Feldkamp had assistants to gather items for photo shoots and write briefs and, occasionally, stories.

Patricia McLaughlin, who had been a junior editor at Vogue, became her assistant in 1969. "I'd been trained to write stuff like, 'The frilly white shirt is the freshest, most delicious look of the year!' There couldn't be too many superlatives. Phyllis would hand me back a piece of copy a dozen times saying, 'Don't sell it to me, just tell me about it,' " said McLaughlin, who writes a syndicated fashion column.

Other former assistants who found careers in fashion include Clara Henry, director of the fashion design program at Philadelphia University, and Renée Weiss Chase, a professor at the Westphal College of Media Arts and Design at Drexel University.

"Phyllis was a fashion intellectual," said Chase. "She studied the work of each designer the way critics study other art forms."

"She opened my eyes to the international world of fashion," said Henry. "Designers from Bill Blass and Halston to the retail captains of industry, all had great admiration for her.

"She was an old-school journalist and a pioneer for women," said Denise Cowie, a former Bulletin features editor. "She could be imperious, but she could also be warm and helpful," said Cowie, who later became an editor and a fashion and garden writer at The Inquirer. "She was always elegantly dressed. She looked like a fashion editor," Cowie said.

"Fads were not her thing," said Chase. "She oozed European quality."

While at the Bulletin, Mrs. Feldkamp wrote freelance articles on a variety of subjects for other publications. She was especially interested in the environment, and in 1971, she received a complimantary note from President Nixon, after she wrote an article about conservation for National Wildlife Magazine, her daughter, Phoebe, said.

Once, in New York, Mrs. Feldkamp had paint thrown on what appeared to be a fur coat by animal-rights protesters. She was indignant, her daughter said, because she agreed with the protesters. The "fur" was fake.

After the Bulletin closed in 1982, Mrs. Feldkamp was a special consultant to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, lectured on fashion and design, wrote promotional material for department stores, and contributed articles to newspapers and magazines.

As the doyenne of style in Philadelphia, she was interviewed by reporters years after she left the Bulletin.

In 1982, Mrs. Feldkamp was honored with Leonore Annenberg and Judge Lisa Richette as a Delaware Valley Woman of Achievement.

She was active with the Friends of Design Arts at Drexel University and in 1988, cochaired a successful Drexel fund-raiser honoring Blass.

In 1997, she was one of the contributors to the book Fantasy and Fashion, a collection of essays.

A native of Chicago, Mrs. Feldkamp attended Bryn Mawr College and then worked for fashion designer Elizabeth Hawes in New York City.

She was a reporter for the Philadelphia Record for two years. Then, from 1944 to 1951, she was a researcher and writer at Life Magazine where she met Life editor, Fred Feldkamp. They married in 1947.

They lived in France from 1956 to 1968, and she and her husband wrote a book about their experience.

"Once I gave her a pin inscribed, 'In Ardua Tendit' which loosely translated means, 'attempted difficult things,' and she said it could be her epitaph," Phoebe Feldkamp said.

Mrs. Feldkamp is survived by her daughter.

She will be buried with her husband, a World War II veteran, at Arlington National Cemetery.

Donations may be made to World Wildlife Fund, 1250 24th St. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20037 or to Disabled American Veterans, P.O. Box 14301, Cincinnati, OH, 45250.