Promoting Handicrafts With Maavni Designs, Smaranika Mohapatra

Smaranika Mohapatra is a freelance artist and the founder of the famous Maavni Designs, an Odisha-based company known for its handpainted home decor, sarees and bags craft training, and corporate gifting.
Handicrafts have always been a passion of hers. After over a decade in the IT sector in Bangalore, where she worked for businesses such as TCS and JP Morgan Chase, she returned to her birthplace of Bhubaneswar and started her own business in the handicrafts sector.
Smaranika founded Maavni Designs in Bhubaneshwar in 2019 with the goal of promoting Odisha’s handicrafts across the country.
The company hires craftspeople, creates custom handicrafts, and sells them online through their own e-commerce site.
She began with home decor and gradually moved into garments and accessories. Their competitive advantage is that they offer customized items to meet the needs of their customers. The majority of their labor is completed in-house, and several artisans have been hired full-time. The company now has over 50,000 Instagram followers, a studio in Bhubaneswar’s Old Town, and ships its items to the United States, the United Kingdom, and other Southeast Asian countries.
Smaranika has always been drawn to assisting women workers and craftsmen in managing their job and personal lives as a woman entrepreneur. Women workers at her office are permitted to bring their children into the office and care for them while they work. She also gives craftsmen the option of working from home.