Dupatta Drape Styles for Best Bridal Wears 2021

Dupatta is a quintessential part of Indian women’s wardrobe. It is an essential accessory that goes with most of the ethnic wear and is always worn with Indian wedding dresses. Whether it’s a lehenga choli, a Punjabi suit, a churidar, a palazzo, an ethnic skirt, or tunic, the wedding dress look is not complete without the dupatta. This piece of cloth speaks a lot about Indian traditions and its various designs are a reflection of the rich regional handicraft industry and cultural diversity.

One of the most underrated, & common styling dilemmas that we fall in, the ultimate question of ‘how to wear your dupatta?’ Usually, we’re all locked in on what outfit we’ll wear, how we want our hair to be done, and what makeup look goes best with it. However, how we’ll wear our dupatta never comes to our mind, and despite that, after getting completely ready, we find ourselves standing in front of the mirror, toying with our dupattas for hours until we find the perfect way to style it.

To save ourselves time and energy we’ve narrowed a few best possible ways to style a dupatta, that’s good to go with various different styles of wedding dresses for brides.

1. Saree Style

A popular wedding and festive regular, Saree style draping is just a craft that showcases your beautiful outfit without overpowering the entire look. Tucked with your waist and draped across your shoulders, this styling technique maintains a proper balance between your outfit and the dupatta. Showcasing all the stunning embroidery work on your dress, saree style draping is highly common in Indian tradition. One can easily recreate this look on their lehengas and stand out from the boring side-parted dupatta style.

Pro Tip: Go with your sleek net dupatta and tie it around your waist, this hack will make your boring dupatta look elegant and chic.

2. Open Dupatta With One Side Tied

Such a simple draping style yet so classy and elegant! This is the super easy-breezy look, that hardly takes any effort or time. Carry your dupatta with poise with this one-shoulder draping style. This styling technique lets your dupatta stand out. The one-side style bridal dupatta drape is very modern and works well if you have it in net or chiffon. As the name is descriptive enough, the dupatta is at one side and is either left loose or is tucked diagonally.
Pro Tip: Go with a simple plain outfit and wear a heavy dupatta on one shoulder and let the magic happen.

3. Cape Style

Take a cue from Batman and turn your dupatta into a cape. A lace or net dupatta will go well with a fitted gown of the same color. Just take the corners of the dupatta and pin it together to make a cape and you’re good to go! Pair it with a gown or a full-length pencil skirt, and watch magic happen. Drape your dupatta like a cape from behind, on both the shoulders. Extremely in vogue right now! This style is a favorite and go-to for all girls these days. A versatile trend, a cape can be paired with almost any Indian outfit. A sheer cape, in particular, is the perfect blend of sexy and classy.

Pro Tip: Team it with a sequinned crop top and a long flowy lehenga for one stunning ensemble.

4. Gujrati Style

An age-old style which is mainly seen in Gujarati weddings, this is such a simple yet so classy and elegant draping technique. Keep your pleats an open at the bottom or shorten the length of your dupatta fabric in the front to go for a Gujarati style dupatta. This way of draping also gives you a chance to showcase the work on your dupattas.

Pro Tip: This styling tip works excellent with silk dupattas.

5. Border Style

If you have a heavy dupatta with a stunning border; this is the correct styling technique. Make small pleats of your dupatta and clinch them with your shoulder with the help of a pin. Take the other end of the dupatta and tuck it on the other side of your waist. Giving you a classic look of saree yet showcasing the stunning border work; this technique works both ways. This particular styling technique is perfect to showcase your dainty border.

Pro Tip: Always go with a double dupatta for this styling technique to hide your sidelocks and belly fat.

6. Tuck It on Your Wrist

This one looks quite Royal and anyone can easily carry this style. All you need to do is let the dupatta rest on your right shoulder and tie the other end of the chunni around the wrist. Another way to drape the dupatta is to pleat it and roll around your wrists. You can pin the dupatta to avoid it from slipping again and again.

Pro Tip: Keep your dupattas light and simple when going with this style.

7. U Shaped Draping

This elegant draping style, lets you flaunt your full attire and compliments your outfit. This style showcases both shawl and blouse beautifully while at the same time keeping it pinned in place. To follow this style, take your dupatta across both the shoulders and let the ends fall loose at the back. Allow your dupatta tilt a little down from the beauty bone to form a U-shape, and you are ready to flaunt perfectly among your peers.

Pro Tip: Go for a sheer worked dupatta to showcase the outfit and the dupatta equally.

8. Pin It With Stunning WaistBand

This is one of the most trending draping styles in today’s time. Straight from the stylebook of one of the greatest Indian designers, Sabyasachi, a waistband is actually fixing the dupatta on one shoulder and holding it on the waist through a band that goes around the waist. The waistband is an accessory that can add to the colors of your lehenga, can be heavily embellished, embroidered, or can be extremely simple.

Pro Tip: Go with a slim waistband in contrast color to add a modern vibe

9. Wrap It around Your Arms

Another style that looks quite regal and gives you the feeling of royalty is throwing the dupatta from the back of your arms instead of carrying it on your shoulders that is the usual style. This style of draping the dupatta goes well with lehengas with heavy flare, Anarkali suits, and even the long gowns with intricate thread and sequin work on it to illuminate the look. Single dupatta fold in the front and tucked in at the back not only lets you be your elite self but also looks pretty and beautiful!

Pro Tip: Go for a light dupatta with minimal work and let the outfit do the talking.

10. Play With Your Sleeves

A classic fushion styling pairing; this styling technique is the latest and very trending. If the board of styling dupattas, this is an uber-chic and very classic way to style it. In this Fusion style, dupattas are attached as a sleeve or off-shoulder pattern and leave the rest of the dupatta freely. This type of styling can go with any outfit and make a simple boring outfit stand out and shout for attention.

Pro Tip: If going for a heavy outfit, add simple sleeves and for a simple outfit add heavy sleeves to add some drama to the look.

11. Wrap It Around Your Neck

This one is extremely simple and is a style that was popular in the 80s. However, this style is back in trend. For those of you who want the minimal dupatta to be visible, you can choose this style. This style is only possible if the dupatta is thin. Fold the dupatta into a sleek length and simply hold it on the neck, from one shoulder to another.

Pro Tip: This dupatta style looks amazing with strapless or off-shoulder blouses.

12. V-Shaped Draping

This one is much like how the Punjabi newlyweds wrap their dupattas around Patiala suits. Attaching one end of the dupatta to the shoulder, forming a V while attaching the center of the dupatta to the other shoulder. The dupatta can further be wrapped around the heads, otherwise can be choosing to fall freely on the back.

Pro Tip: Use this when you do not want people to miss out on the heavy detailing that you so painstakingly got done on your pallu.

13. Jacket-Style Dupatta

This styling technique is something everyone is majorly obsessed off. Be it celebrities or fashion influencers, the different dupatta styling videos surely have this styling technique. This style is very easy to create yet quirky. Attach one end of your dupatta to our shoulder and from the bak attach the other end to the other shoulder. You can clinch the dupatta with a belt to give it a nice and chic look. When worn with lehengas, this technique looks stunning and offers all the attention to even the minutest techniques on your outfit. Go for a simple net dupatta to give it a more polished look.

Pro Tip: Add a simple dupatta with a sleek border preferably to net which is easy to carry and makes your outfit stand out.

14. Wear A Double Dupatta One one the Head and the other as Saree.

This is called Maharani Style dupatta draping. This type of double dupatta is perfect for those brides who don’t prefer to carry a heavy dupatta over their heads on their wedding day. The twist in the style is that you can make it even more stylish by using two different dupattas of contrasting or matching colors. One dupatta can be wrapped around the head and the other one can be wrapped around in a typical saree or Gujarati style.

Pro Tip: For the head dupatta, go for a lighter that is heavy on work but light on weight.

15. Wear A Veil

Veils are something brides are crushing on these days. Coming from traditional old fashioned ghunghats, veils go very well with not only lehengas but with Indo-Western outfit as well. From Priyanka to Deepika, these celebrities have set the bar really high. Veils add a stunning look to the entire outfit. Within this, the bride drapes the dupatta over the head like a veil until the need to unveil it. The bride’s face is visible but is still hidden from the outer world.

Pro Tip: Go for a net dupatta for the veil as it gives a poise and stunning edge.

So what did you choose? With these elegant dupatta draping style options and techniques, you can wrap around the dupatta in whichever way you are comfortable. Adding dollops of oomph to your ensemble, it transforms your once- or twice-worn Anarkali or lehenga into a spanking new outfit. Whether it is heavily embellished or light-bordered, quirky or printed, smartly -draped beauties can give you a kickass look.

We @VenueMonk have complied with some of the classic yet elegant and quirky lehenga dupatta draping style options that will add more drama to your dropping game.

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