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MIAMI
— She threw a spectacular bash one weekend in
Las Vegas
, then woke up that Monday morning and decided there
must be something more.
That
defining moment became the seed of OmniPeace, a
humanitarian fashion brand — popular among the celeb
set — that donates profits to social causes in
Africa
.
Now,
Miami
native
Mary Fanaro
is at the intersection of philanthropy, fashion and pop
culture, and her company has donated more than
$500,000
to charity and help build a school in a Senegalese
village. She is also working on a campaign to stop
violence again women and children in the Congo.
Fanaro
had worked in the entertainment industry more than half
of her life, as an actress, a producer, and for a
decade, as a tony event planner.
Four
years ago, she was the party planner behind the 10th
anniversary celebration for the
Hard Rock Hotel and Casino
in
Las Vegas
.
The next
morning, she gave up her career.
"It
was really a change, a shift in my spirituality,"
says Fanaro, 44, who lives in
Los Angeles
. "I knew I could throw a party, I knew I had a
gift for gathering people and exposing people. I just
felt like I needed to expose people to something that
matters."
Inspired
by the Live Aid concerts — which raised money for
famine relief in
Ethiopia
— Fanaro worked to develop a brand that could raise
awareness of and funds for the epic social and economic
issues facing Africans.
One of
the primary beneficiaries is
Millennium Promise Alliance
, the organization founded by economist and U.N. advisor
Jeffrey Sachs
. The group is working to end extreme poverty in
Africa
by 2025.
Fanaro
formed the lifestyle brand as a licensing company and
has partnered with more than a dozen brands including
Ed Hardy
to produce a collection of T-shirts and accessories. She
got some high-wattage help from celeb friends including
Courteney Cox
,
Jennifer Aniston
and
Sheryl Crow
, and counts
Zac Efron
, Sienna Miller,
Gabrielle Union
,
Gwen Stefani
,
Kevin Costner
and Common among her fans.
"I
am not a designer in the technical sense," Fanaro
says. "It's really about co-branding with larger
companies to raise awareness for humanitarian
campaigns."
We caught
up with Fanaro to talk about OmniPeace, a health scare
and her "
Miami
Vice" days.
Q: How
did the idea of OmniPeace evolve?
A: I had
been to
Africa
in my 20s and had seen how much help is needed. You just
can't go to
Africa
and not be changed... . My original idea was to do
chocolate bars. I called them A Peace of Chocolate. I
remember showing them to a friend who said, it's a great
logo but there's not a lot of profit in chocolate bars.
He said, put the logo on a T-shirt and get your friends
and celebs to wear it and see if it sticks."
Q: When
did you launch OmniPeace?
A: I had
been developing the idea since 2005 and launched it in
June 2007
.
Naomi (Campbell)
launched it with me at Scoop in the Meat Packing
district in
New York
. In
Los Angeles
, Courteney launched it with me at Kitson. But two weeks
before the launches, I was diagnosed with ovarian
cancer. I had worked so long on this that I wanted to
see it through. I launched OmniPeace on
June 12
at
8 p.m.
(in
Los Angeles
) and started chemotherapy at
8 a.m.
on
June 13
. I remember seeing a guy that morning wearing one of
the OmniPeace T-shirts from the party the night before.
Q: You
are a proud
Miami
native. How did you land in L.A.?
A: I went
to Gulliver (
Preparatory School
) and graduated from
Coral Gables
(
Senior High School
). I went to the
University of Miami
for film for about a second. One day my teacher asked me
to go out for an audition. I told him, I am not an
actress. I did it as a favor and got the part and never
stopped working. It was a horror film and I think I
played a chick who screams. That eventually led to
"
Miami
Vice."
Q: That
must have been an exciting time to be working in
Miami
.
A: It was
a lot of fun, because this was going on during the whole
re-invention of South Beach. There were a lot of
production companies and everybody was doing commercials
(here). I started as an extra the first year on "
Miami
Vice," then got bigger parts. I played everything.
A hooker, a waitress, the bad guy's girlfriend — I
remember I got that part because the girl they cast out
of
New York
broke her arm.
Q: How
did you and actress
Courteney Cox
become such good friends?
A: We did
a movie-of-the-week together, it was "The Prize
Pulitzer: The Roxanne Pulitzer Story." We became
friends. Not long after that, I called off my
engagement, I moved to
Los Angeles
and moved in with her.
Q: How
did you make the transition from acting to event
planning?
A: It
really grew out of my birthday parties. I seemed to have
a gift for entertaining and putting people together.
Studios started asking me to do private, small, upscale
events for them. Like a dinner for 30 at the Marciano
house, the man that founded Guess. I did a pre-Oscar
Vanity Fair party in which
Justin Timberlake
performed on a hotel rooftop. I prided myself on being
able to create comfort zones for celebrities, places
they could go and enjoy themselves without the gossip.
Q:
OmniPeace has expanded into a collection that now
includes T-shirts, hats, bags, yoga mats and other
accessories. And you partnered with L Space by
Monica Wise
for a swimwear collection that debuted at Swim Week this
summer in
Miami Beach
. What's next?
A: We now
have a children's line. We are also working on building
two more schools, one in
Malawi
and the other in
Senegal
. I want to build a brand like
Paul Newman
(Newman's Own), a name that can be trusted to do good
things.
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