The deformation of textile composite reinforcement is influenced by its fibrous composition. In -plane bending behaviour is an inherent aspect of textile reinforcement, yet it is frequently overlooked. The paper elucidates the significant influence of in -plane bending behaviour on fibre orientation during forming process and emphasizes the necessity of accounting for in -plane bending virtual work to prevent non-physical deformation mode. To this purpose in -plane bending calculation is implemented into a fibrous shell finite element by using the neighbouring elements method. Numerical spurious mode involving in -plane shear is avoided due to the new approach. Finally, the model is validated by comparing with composite reinforcement draping experiments: fibre orientations and distributions of shear angles are simulated in good agreement with experiments and give better results than the simulations neglecting the in -plane bending behaviour.