New York jewelry retailing matriarch Helene Fortunoff passed away on Nov. 8 in Miami at the age of 88. The cause of death was non-COVID-19 respiratory illness.
Fortunoff was ahead of her time: She was born in 1933 and graduated from New York University in the ’50s with a degree in business administration. It was there that she met her future husband, Alan Fortunoff, in class.
Helene joined the Fortunoff family business — then mostly focused on housewares and furniture — and established an in-house jewelry department for the company in 1957. She grew the company’s reputation in jewelry from scratch, pushing a team of merchants to travel around the world to source uncommon designs in order to build prestige for the Fortunoff brand.
In 2003, trade publication National Jeweler named Fortunoff the 24th largest fine jewelry retailer in the U.S. — with only five jewelry departments under its belt.
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Helene and Alan Fortunoff had six children together, and he passed away in 2000. In 2006, she married Robert Grossman, and they moved to Florida after her retirement.
Fortunoff is survived by Grossman, as well as five children Esther, Andrea, Rhonda, Ruth and David. Her son Louis passed away in 2012. Fortunoff is also survived by nine grandchildren and one great grandchild.
Donations can be made in her name to the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies at Yale University, the North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center or the Lustgarten Foundation for Pancreatic Cancer Research.