You’ve probably seen it on TikTok by now: An image of a blonde woman donning a vermilion-colored floor-length dress with a matching sheer shawl scrunched at her neck, the two ends falling gracefully behind her and over both shoulders. In a separate shot, two women are descending a staircase, one sporting a casually open-draped scarf across her chest and shoulders. Then there's another woman's head, hovering over the photos, offering her commentary that the outfits are “very European, very classy” and declaring it to be the perfect “Scandinavian summer wedding guest look.”
Spoiler alert: This lightweight silk shawl isn't even vaguely European. It is called a dupatta, and South Asians and other Eastern cultures have been wearing it as part of their everyday wardrobe for centuries. Also called a chunni, lugda, pothi, odhni, and a variety of other names across the vast subcontinent, the dupatta is a staple that is most often paired with the casual salwar kameez outfit, which looks quite similar to what the women were wearing in the video (which has since been deleted, but not before going viral).
