The assumption is that a pre-stitched saree is for someone who never learned to drape. Sometimes it is. More often it is for someone who drapes perfectly well and does not want to spend the evening checking that the pleats are still where she left them.
A traditional saree is a single length of unstitched cloth. Everything about how it sits is produced on the day, by hand, and maintained all evening. That is the pleasure of it and also the work of it.
A ready-to-wear saree has the pleats and the drape constructed into the garment. You step into it. The fall is fixed, which means it is the same at hour six as it was at hour one — and it means the fall was decided by whoever cut it rather than by you.
That trade is the whole thing. You give up the ability to change the drape, the pleat depth and the pallu length. You get back the certainty that none of them will move.
