Women’s Nepali Rai Shawl | Cotton

The shawl is a defining element of Rai women’s ceremonial dress — worn draped over the shoulder during Sakela, the Kirat Rai harvest festival celebrated twice each year, and at weddings, Dashain, and community events by Rai women across Nepal, Sikkim, Darjeeling, and the Kalimpong hills. It is not an accessory added to an outfit but a marker of community belonging, as recognisable within Rai cultural life as any other element of traditional dress.

BHUTIB offers this shawl in two distinct forms. The cotton variant is a plain-weave wrap in off-white with a densely embroidered border — floral clusters and geometric repeats worked in deep red, forest green, black, and gold thread along one long edge and both short ends, the stitching close and even. The poly-cotton variant is double-layered — the same fabric folded back on itself at the hem for a clean, weighted finish — in a deep maroon that carries a low sheen in light, the structure and colour doing the work that embroidery does in the other version.