Shoshanna Lonstein Gruss | |
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Born | Shoshanna Lonstein May 29, 1975 Manhattan, New York, U.S. |
Education | Nightingale-Bamford School |
Alma mater | George Washington University University of California, Los Angeles |
Occupation | Fashion designer |
Years active | 1998–present |
Spouse | Joshua Gruss (m. 2003;div. 2014) |
Children | 3 |
Website | www |
Shoshanna Lonstein-Gruss (born May 29, 1975) is an American writer and fashion designer and the founder and creative director of the fashion label Shoshanna, which was launched in 1998.
Shoshanna Lonstein was born and raised in Manhattan, New York, to a Jewish family. She attended Nightingale-Bamford School for girls in New York City's Upper East Side, graduating in 1993. While still a 17-year-old high school student, she met then 38-year-old Jerry Seinfeld in a public park. [1] At that point, Seinfeld got her phone number. [2] Lonstein later came to public attention by dating Seinfeld, who was at the time starring in his eponymous sitcom. Early in their relationship, Spy Magazine referred to her as "a legal voter", since she had turned 18 by then. [3] They dated for approximately four years, from 1993 to 1997, before the relationship ended. She transferred from George Washington University to UCLA, in part to be with Seinfeld, and cited constant press coverage and missing New York City as reasons for the relationship ending. [4]
With a loan from her father, Zach Lonstein, chief executive officer of Infocrossing, she started her clothing company in 1998 with the mission to design a clothing line that appealed to different body types. [5]
In 2013, Elizabeth Arden, Inc. named Gruss the brand's first-ever Style Director. In this new role, Gruss served as a spokesperson and adviser for the design label. [6]
Gruss has appeared in numerous television programs, webcasts, and interviews, including a 2008 episode of America's Next Top Model . [7]
On May 10, 2003, Lonstein married Josh Gruss, son of financier Martin D. Gruss and grandson of financier and philanthropist Joseph S. Gruss. [8] [9] Joshua Gruss is a partner at Gruss & Co., a private investment firm based in New York City, [8] and CEO of Round Hill Music. [10] They have three children: a daughter, Sienna, born in 2005 and who now models for her; and twins, Angelica and Joseph Colby, born in 2012. [5] The pair divorced in 2014.
She lives on the Upper East Side of Manhattan with their children. [11]
Gruss is a trustee of Reform synagogue Temple Emanu-El of New York, [12] and the Nightingale-Bamford School where she is also a member of their Alumnae Board Committee. [13] Gruss was Vice Chairman of the associate committee of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and its Children's Committee from 2012–2014. [14]
Jerome Allen Seinfeld is an American stand-up comedian, actor, writer, and producer. From 1989 to 1998, he played a semi-fictionalized version of himself in the sitcom Seinfeld, which he created and wrote with Larry David. The show aired on NBC from 1989 until 1998, becoming one of the most acclaimed and popular sitcoms of all time. As a stand-up comedian, Seinfeld specializes in observational comedy. In 2004, Comedy Central named him the 12th-greatest stand-up comedian of all time.
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he met Shoshanna Lonstein in New York City's Central Park in May 1993, Jerry Seinfeld was thirty-eight and she was only seventeen
Seinfeld, comedian, TV star and life observer, was strolling through Central Park one day in May 1993 when he spotted a stranger he now calls 'the most wonderful girl in the world.' Seinfeld, then 38, sallied over, made small talk and went away with the telephone number of Shoshanna Lonstein—then 17