The fourth Cash & Rocket ‘fund racing’ fashion road trip launched in London this week. The event brings together influential and empowering women, to complete a 1,048 mile drive in rare super cars across Europe to raise money for three charities that educate children in Africa.
Actress, Rosario Dawson is taking part, so we we thrilled to chat to her about the road trip, fashion and how to act cool around Naomi Campbell...
Grazia Daily: Hi Rosario! Why are you excited about the Cash and Rocket tour?
Rosario: It is empowering and I get so excited seeing these people coming together and racing to raise funds. It’s not asking someone to show up to a one night event where you work for a couple of hours at a fundraiser, it takes up a lot of time and that’s pretty remarkable. It’s a very unreasonable ask, but people are showing up, and it makes me feel very grateful, proud, and excited. We are going to have a lot of fun and do a lot of the driving which is not always the case. We don’t want to just have a party and fundraise, we actually want to go driving and go on a tour. We are driving over a thousand miles.
Grazia Daily: Have you done any road trips before?
Rosario: All the time. I drove across the country with my mom when I was 11, we went from San Francisco to Los Angeles, and went across the whole country together, which was really amazing. We used to live in Texas and we drove to New York. I go from New York to Florida all the time to visit family, and went to North Carolina when my brother was going to school there. I love road trips, they’re really good, you see so much more in a different way. I fly all the time and I really like taking trains. I really like travelling, it reminds me of what I get to do, not what I have to do.
**Grazia Daily: Have you met any other the other ladies from the rally before?
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Rosario: Everyone is friends with each other. All of our ambitions are very much in line, some of us have only just met, but we are happy to get to know each other, chat and see how we can support each other. This is a really remarkable thing. It’s really conscious, thoughtful, passionate, fun businesswomen and these are some really powerful women who are all going to be driving together.
It’s not a race, it’s a tour. We are going to enjoy this time and get to know each other – it’s a really great networking opportunity, and a chance to see the ways that we can collaborate and work with each other.
Grazia Daily: We've just had International Women’s Day, is there someone you really admire as a female role model?
Rosario: Oh, there are so many, it’s insane. My grandmother has always been a really important person in my mind, and heart, and personal experience. Raising five kids on her own, managing to just help them through. My great grandmother was a seamstress. She would stitch pants out of the couch cover with my mum. My great-grandmother would bring whatever materials she had home and she would do these great styles. My mom, as a teenager, had up to the moment stuff because she had the patterns, but, she had to use the same material as the pillows!
Grazia Daily: Do you think she was an inspiration for you setting up your ethical fashion brand?
Rosario: Absolutely. She was part of starting a ripple effect. In the line of women that I come from, they’ve all helped and extended a hand in their different ways, even poor people helping poor people, which shows the impact that you can have, even when you have limited resources. The ethical brand makes sense considering how I was raised, and now that I have the opportunities that I have, and that the people I’m working with all have that same ideal.
Grazia Daily: You walked in Naomi Campbell’s Fashion For Relief show at New York fashion week, was it daunting to have to walk on the catwalk?
Rosario: I have done it twice now! How trippy is that? It was really fun. All I cared about was not face planting. Obviously, that’s not all I cared about because there was a reason why I signed on. Despite my fears and doubts, it was for a really good cause. The fund that Jeffery Wright created for Ebola does work in Sierra Leone so we have supported each other over the years doing that. When he asked me, there was no way I could say no. Seeing Naomi Campbell put the show together was just remarkable. What Naomi is doing is just really, really cool. The show is a great fundraising tool, I just think that’s really amazing. I grew up in the supermodel era, do you know what I mean? In New York, looking at the magazines. To be working in fashion now, it’s a trippy to be walking down the catwalk and then watching Naomi walk. I'm like, 'yeah lift up your chin, pretend that you’re cool'. Over the years she has donated to the Lower East Side Girls Club and she has been really great to me. I pretend like it’s nothing, but it is really cool.
Grazia Daily: Do you have a favourite designer?
Rosario: I like so many different designers. Prada, Calvin Klein, Rick Owen, I really like all the different kinds of fashion.
Grazia Daily: What else are you up to work wise at the moment? Are you working on any new films?
Rosario: I’m really working on our line. I had seven films which came out last year, which is insane. This is the first time in 20 years that I don’t have a film opening. It’s pretty amazing, I feel so grateful, it’s just that I have something different that I did this year. We filmed Dare Devil, a Marvel collaboration with Netflix. All of the episodes that we shot come out in April 10/12. There’s going to be a whole event and they’ve never done that before, so I’m really excited to see how that goes. It’s fun doing something different. I like experimenting and trying new things out.
*Rosario Dawson is the McArthurGlen Designer Outlet's Tour Ambassador for Cash & Rocket 2015 Tour