Designer Bibhu Mohapatra (centre) interacts with weavers and officials of the department of textiles and handloom in Bargarh on Monday. Telegraph picture

Bhubaneswar, Nov. 9: The haute couture designed by him has an international following that includes Angelina Jolie, Salma Hayek, Siena Miller, Gwyneth Paltrow to name a few.

But when New York-based Oriya fashion designer Bibhu Mohapatra visited weavers of the state, the traditional motifs and fabrics of Orissa’s handlooms left him in awe. Bibhu took a five-day trip of the districts famous for handlooms under the “Orissa Design Reference Collection” project of the textiles and handloom department of the state.

During his visit to Bhubaneswar, Bargarh, Nuapatna and Gopalpur areas, Bibhu interacted with the weavers to understand their age-old techniques of creating unique patterns on a wide range of silk.

“The silk here is rare and the handloom products of Orissa are fascinating. They can be used in fashion garments to produce couture collections,” said Bibhu.

The internationally acclaimed designer will be promoting the handlooms of Orissa at fashion weeks worldwide. Many other reputed fashion designers will also work on designing collections out of Orissa’s handlooms that will be developed by veteran textile experts Martand Singh and Rta Kapur Chisthi.

“The “Orissa Design Reference Collection” project involves top fashion designers such as Bibhu, Sabyasachi Mukherjee, Anjali Kalia, Rajesh Pratap Singh, David Abraham and Rakesh Thakore among many others. They will design costumes, which our weavers will create under the guidance of Martand Singh and Rta Kapur Chishti. The fashion designers will become brand ambassadors to promote and market our handlooms under a theme of Orissa collections at international fashion weeks,” said Arati Ahuja, secretary, department of textiles and handloom. “Well-known designer Rajesh Pratap Singh has already had success in this endeavour at a couple of international fashion shows,” she added.

Bibhu, who was in Orissa till Tuesday for the project, said that he gladly joined this venture of the state government so that he could visit his state more often.

“I miss Orissa a lot. But I have plans to do a lot of work in my field over here,” he said. Speaking about an Oriya personality he would wish to design for, he immediately named actress Aparajita Mohanty.

“I feel she has a unique grace and elegance. I would love to design outfits for different periods of the day for her,” said the designer.