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.
———
You can find L(ASTERISK)Space swimwear at Everything But Water (Aventura Mall and Boca Town Center) or everythingbutwater.com.
The
Ed Hardy collection is available at local Macy's stores.
Other OmniPeace items can be found at www.omnipeace.com
