Saris and Sari Shopping

Today we went to a huge sari shop at which I was bought another 3 saris.

Let me explain that sari shops can be multiple floors of multiple rooms, all with walls lined with neatly stacked saris in a plethora of colors that's hard to imagine unless you've ever been to one. Saris come in all kinds of materials. This shop we went to today was organized with signs throughout the store above the wall shelves stating 3 things: 1) a cost range for the saris in that section, 2) the material of the saris in that section (e.g., silk, crepe, cotton...) 3) the region of origin of the style of the sari. One goes up to a long table and a sales clerk commences to pull out sari after sari and unfold them before you. He (so far it seems to always be a he) unveils the inside, which often has fancy patterns in contrasting colors, and carefully folds it up and throws it over your shoulder for you to "try on". I'm probably grossly simplifying the explanation.

Today I learned that the anatomy of saris are is more complex than I'd realized (not to mention the complication of how one is to wrap them). There are two main pieces: one large piece of fabric that gets folded into a pleated skirt and then the rest sort of wrapped around you, up and over one shoulder, and then there's a short top that goes under that, which is pretty tight fitting. Sometimes the fabric for the top comes with the main sari fabric. Other times (when the top material isn't included) one must elect a desired color of fabric for the top.
Yet there's all this other fabric one must buy... fabric for the "fall" -- a strip of material that goes on the inside of the bottom part of the skirt of the sari to give it weight so that the pleats fall properly... patterned material if you want to have a border/accents stitched onto the top that a tailor will make for you... fabric for a separate cotton underskirt... fabric to line the top (at least if the top material is made of silk). Rather complicated indeed.