(TIME.com) -- Just before heading to bed one night in August, I got a text message from Bibhu Mohapatra. It contained a photo of First Lady Michelle Obama in a citrus-print sleeveless sheer yoke cocktail dress. Above it, a message: "Just found out, Michelle is wearing the yellow dress." Mohapatra has dressed Kristen Wiig, Hilary Swank and Glenn Close, but this was different. There she was, America's fashion icon on The Tonight Show, validating Mohapatra's work before a national audience. It is Mohapatra's moment, but it's a story that almost wasn't. He had never been on a plane before 1995, when he left his native Orissa, India, at age 23 with a one-way ticket to Logan, Utah, to pursue a master's degree in economics on an academic scholarship to Utah State University.
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Mohapatra has has dressed actresses and the First Lady.
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Mohapatra is a member of the Council of Fashion Designers of America.
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He uses traditional dressmaking techniques.
"I hope to grow another head and two more hands," he adds with a laugh, "like an @placeholder goddess."