Oscar de la Renta was born in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, to a Dominican mother, Carmen María Antonia Fiallo, and a Puerto Rican father, Óscar Avelino De La Renta, owner of an insurance company. The Fiallos, De la Renta's mother's family, were so embedded in Dominican society that they could count poets, scholars, and businessmen, as well as top army brass among their members. Their origin in the island can be traced back to the foundation of San Carlos de Tenerife in 1685 by Canarian settlers. A maternal uncle, Luis Arístides Fiallo Cabral, was a doctor, lawyer, and architect, who received every degree the
Annette de la Renta Annette de la Renta Annette de la Renta (born 24 December 1939) is an American philanthropist and socialite, the widow of the Dominican fashion designer Oscar de la Renta. She was named to the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame in 1973. Born in Nice, France, as Anne France Mannheimer and nicknamed Annette, she is the only child of a German Jewish banker, Fritz Mannheimer (1890–1939), who died before her birth, and his Roman Catholic wife, Marie Antoinette Jeanne Reiss (later known as Jane Engelhard, 1917–2004). Annette's German-born maternal grandfather, Hugo Reiss, was a prominent German Jewish businessman in