![]() The type of luxury item bought differs from mature to emerging markets, and from region to region. The emerging markets such as China, India, Russia and the Middle East are fast becoming big contributors to the global luxury marketplace. Despite grim news about sliding economy’s, recessions and rising living costs, the World’s High Net worth Individuals spent enormous amounts of their wealth on luxury items, last year, quite aptly referred to as “Investments of Passion.” The luxury items include dazzling jewelry, luxury cars, private jets, dog sledding trips beyond the Arctic Circle and luxury watches. The 12 th annual World Wealth Report was released this past Tuesday – June 24 th by Merill Lynch. Of Corum, he is survived by another son, Nathan, and daughters Deborah Drucker and Raphaelle Cassens, all of the Los Angeles area his daughter Elizabeth Wunderman of England his brother, Max, of Beverly Hills and four grandchildren. Along with his son, Michael, who is president In 2005 Wunderman was presented with the French Legion of Honor for his cultural and philanthropic contributions. He also developed a series of gold and diamond watches.Īfter suffering a life-threatening case of lung cancer in the 1990s, he established the Severin Wunderman Family Foundation to support medical research on incurable diseases. Another design, "Garden Bird," included a hummingbird among flowers. He went on to create limited-edition watches with whimsical details, including a "Royal Flush" model that featured five playing cards in the same suit and a dollar sign on the second-hand. His first major success with Corum was a "bubble" watch with a glass dome over the watch face that Wunderman compared to a submarine hatch. He sold his Gucci watch business in the late 1990s and bought the Switzerland-based Corum company in 2000. Ten years later, he donated the Cocteau collection to the University of Texas at Austin. ![]() In 1985 he opened the museum to the public. ![]() He filled it with drawings, paintings, tapestries and art objects by the French modern artist Jean Cocteau that he had been collecting since he was 19. From there he went to work in the watch business.Īfter establishing Severin Montres, Wunderman opened the Severin Wunderman Museum in the same Irvine building. His first step into the manufacturing business came when he was in his 20s and made and sold gold chain jewelry. He quit high school, worked in a parking lot at night and managed a string of newspaper delivery boys by day. Wunderman's mother died when he was about 10, and he moved to Los Angeles, alone, to live with his older sister Bella, who was already settled in the city. "He came in, tied everyone up and took me out." "My father was one of those people you didn't mess with," Wunderman recalled in a 1995 interview with The Times. Gentile family took him in, and after the war they did not want to let him go home to his parents. Severin was placed in a school for blind children where he was the only child with sight. When the Nazis invaded Belgium during World War II, his parents paid a Catholic priest to hide him and his two siblings in the countryside. 19, 1938, the son of a Jewish glove manufacturer. ![]() He had worked his way back from a near-devastating childhood. Wunderman established Severin Montres, with a sales office in Irvine, and remained the sole manufacturer and distributor of Gucci watches for more than 25 years. "The man went into his pocket, took out his checkbook and prepaid the order," Wunderman recalled of Gucci in a 1986 interview with the Orange County Business Journal. The only problem was that he didn't have the Wunderman then proposed to Gucci that he quit his job and oversee the manufacture It turned out, however, that Barthelay was not prepared to fill more than a small percentage of the order. The two men met for a drink and Wunderman convinced Gucci to place a watch order worth $250,000. The owner, Aldo Gucci, happened to answer the phone. During a business trip to New York City in the early 1970s he called on Gucci, a company known for luxury accessories. Wunderman began his career in the 1960s as a salesman for Alexis Barthelay, the European He owned homes in Southern California, Las Vegas and Europe. Wunderman, who built Gucci Timepieces into a multimillion-dollar business, died after a stroke, according to his son. Severin Wunderman, the owner of Corum, the Swiss luxury watch manufacturer, who was also an art collector and philanthropist, died Wednesday at his home in Nice, France, his son, Michael, said.
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