Whenever Indian women taught me how to wear a sari, they missed essential steps I had to discover on my own. Secrets such as knotting a sari instead of just tucking it into a petticoat came with trial and error. Now a bonafide expert in more than eighty drapes, Boulanger is an inspiration to most of us Hindu women who barely know a handful. As Boulanger organized her information, she realized most sari drapes could be categorized into families. On grouping various drapes, Boulanger found the necessity of a glossary to identify each part of a sari.
Every sari starts with tying it tightly, whether on the waist or chest.
As a result, she terms the part of the sari from which the drape begins, mundi , and the part thrown over the shoulder, pallav . The main part of the sari is the body. The edges are the upper and lower borders . While Boulanger created a working glossary of the sari, she feels most successful in arranging the sari into families. Studies preceding Boulanger's work grouped drapes according to region or state, so she initially followed suit.