Peggy Sagers: "When you start to walk on the way, the way appears."

This quote by Rumi reminds us to have faith in the journey even when we don't have all the answers at the beginning.

In sewing, as in life, clarity often comes through action.

Sometimes the next step only becomes clear once we take the first one.

Ella will guide us to trust the process, embrace uncertainty, and discover that the path will reveal itself as we move forward today on "Fit 2 Stitch."

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ announcer: "Fit 2 Stitch" is made possible by Kai Scissors, Reliable Corporation, ♪♪♪ Bennos Buttons, ♪♪♪ Plano Sewing Center, ♪♪♪ Elliott Berman Textiles, ♪♪♪ and WAWAK Sewing Supplies.

Peggy: I love outdoors, and I love fashion, and I never had or saw the ability to have the two brought together.

I always wondered why they hadn't been, but just, you don't see about it, hear about it.

Maybe it wouldn't work.

It was just an idea I always had, like, why couldn't that little tennis outfit be so much better than what it was?

Well, it can be.

Ella's here today, and Ella is gonna teach us, and really what she's done is she's brought the world of couture and the world of sports together.

It's amazing.

Ella Pritsker: Thank you, Peggy.

Peggy: Thank you for being here.

Ella: Thank you so much for having me.

I love being outdoors, and I love golf, and the thing I did not love about it is looking like a little boy.

Peggy: I agree.

Ella: I wanted to design a line that had feminine lines, feminine details.

Like, I wanted to have the ruffles, I wanted to have the beautiful prints, I wanted to have the details.

I really believe that everyday sportswear and everyday style can be just as fabulous and as well made as any couture gown that's walking down a red carpet.

Peggy: So let's talk about that for a minute because that's not--it's not been done.

It really has not been done.

The couture people focus on charging more, and you know, making it fancier and fancier, and the other world just focuses on making, mass producing.

So to bring them together, I mean, I just think that's amazing.

Ella: I think people want something very beautiful and unique to wear, and the way that our fashion industry has come so fast and so-- Peggy: Quickly, it just really quickly evolved.

Ella: It's very, very fast fashion, and I think that we want to get to a point where we can really enjoy our clothes and have beautiful styles to wear and really enjoy our experience no matter where we go, so to have something that's very well made, that's going to last a long time, and that you can wear anywhere.

You can wear it on a golf course, you can wear it to a business meeting, you can wear it running around doing errands or being with kids.

I love sportswear that I have designed because it allows me to live my entire day in one outfit and do all the things that I wanna do.

Peggy: But still look like-- you still look presentable.

Ella: And still look like a lady.

Peggy: Yeah, so the concept, your background is couture, your background is--?

Ella: Yes, I have been designing couture clothing for 30 years, and making beautiful, one-of-a-kind garments, gowns, and wedding dresses, and all kinds of beautiful things.

Peggy: Which is a long ways from the golf course or the tennis court.

Ella: Yes, but even, you know, I don't spend a lot of time on the golf course, but when I do, I want to look good, and I find that there's a lot of us like that.

Peggy: So there's the idea.

How did you start?

Where did it go after you had the idea?

Tell me where you went next.

Ella: So I was invited to play in a golf tournament, and I thought, "Okay, this is my big chance.

I need to look good," and I created an outfit for myself to look good for the golf tournament and to be comfortable, and that's where it started.

I made my first outfit and I thought, "Okay, I can improve on this," and as I was working on it, I knew that I could improve on so many things, and I could use such much better textiles that the industry uses, which is very, again, fast fashion, and it doesn't last very long, and elasticity wears out, and so and so forth.

Peggy: Because the fabrics are so really inexpensive.

Ella: Very--yes, very inexpensive, but they're made for sportswear, for performance.

They're not made for style, so what I have done is I've adapted all the couture fabrics and textiles that I know, that I have worked with for so many years, and I adore because they can move, they can breathe, they can allow such artistry, and I've adapted them for a couture golf line, which is now not just golf line, which is now everyday style.

Peggy: Okay, so this is really cool.

So the start with your idea, then you got invited, so you had to put it into practice, and then were you the best looking person at the golf course?

The best dressed?

Ella: Hands down, if I must say so myself, everybody complimented me on the outfit and asked me, "Where did I get it?"

so-- Peggy: You made it.

Ella: I made it.

Peggy: That's pretty wild.

That's pretty wild.

So--but go back to that first outfit for a minute.

How did you do--how did you create that first one?

You said you do many things different, but walk us through that.

Ella: I wanted to look best in what I had on hand, and what I had on hand was bouclé, a fabric that I love and work with all the time.

I make a lot of beautiful jackets and dresses and gowns using bouclé, which is a very nubby, beautiful French textile that can be made in wool, in cotton, in linen.

Peggy: Because usually you don't equate bouclé on a golf course.

Typically, Chanel uses bouclé.

Ella: Chanel uses bouclé.

She's my--I'm her biggest fan.

She's my biggest inspiration, and I love all the beautiful styles, and one of the things that I really love about Chanel is their boxy silhouettes, which is something that I think is very appropriate for the golf course because it makes it very comfortable and it also makes it very unique.

There's nothing really out there that looks like bouclé in sportswear world, so I've treated it in a way that allowed me to have a form-fitting beautiful garment that has performance and style combined, and how I achieved it is a little bit of interfacing and shrinking, and then in all of the seams, I've added stretch mesh so the fabric itself-- Peggy: So that's your secret weapon is that stretch mesh?

Ella: While it does not stretch, I've added stretch in all of the seams.

Peggy: So you actually don't need the whole thing to stretch, you just need portions?

Ella: You just need crucial points of the garment to have give so that you can swing the golf club, so you can be comfortable, and it can move with you and look good while you're doing that.

Peggy: So when you originally came up with that concept, did you determine how many you had to have in order for it to have the movement you needed?

Ella: Now, this is the really fun part.

This jacket existed for many years for me in my collection as a couture collection, in my couture collection.

Peggy: Same jacket?

Ella: Same exact jacket, same exact pattern, but there was no mesh in the seams.

It was just a jacket.

Peggy: Okay.

Ella: It was made of cashmere, and I loved it because it was very comfortable.

Peggy: You're such a visionary to take cashmere and put it on the golf course.

I love this, but go ahead.

Ella: It's comfort and style.

Peggy: No, you're right, you're absolutely right.

Ella: And then I've added some details that would make it even more comfortable like this mesh.

Peggy: The whole undersleeve is mesh.

Ella: The undersleeve is mesh so that it allows for a wearer to be cool on the golf course because you get hot.

Obviously, it's very warm outside most of the time when we play golf, and I've just added some details that I really wanted to have such as pockets, and pockets here and here so that I can put my tees, my golf balls, or anything else that I need, and I loved the outfit.

Peggy: So talk to me about the fabrics themselves.

I mean, bouclé typically is dry clean only.

Ella: Yes, so through the process that we use of fusing, interfacing to the textile, it shrinks, and it becomes performance wear, and you can wash it.

Peggy: Okay, that's really interesting.

Say that one more time just so I make sure I get that.

Ella: Through the process of fusing, interfacing to bouclé, the way they do it for us, it becomes performance wear.

Peggy: So it shrinks a little bit with that process, therefore it can be washed.

Ella: It can be washed, and it becomes so stable-- the stability of the garment is very important for performance wear.

It becomes so stable that you can wash it and you can dry it, and you can do it again and again and again.

The jacket I'm wearing today has been washed multiple times.

I've been wearing it for at least a couple of years.

Peggy: My goodness, that's just surprising.

Let's go back to this outfit, and let's look at-- I wanna know details.

Do you mind sharing some details?

Ella: Absolutely, absolutely.

Peggy: Okay, so this is just--I mean, like, I would love to throw this jacket on every day.

Ella: A lot of my customers do.

Peggy: Because what you want is you want to look good, but you want to be completely comfortable, and a lot of times when I get dressed, as soon as I get home, I wanna take everything off.

Ella: That is one of the things that I love about this sportswear is the fact that I don't feel like that every day that I wear.

I don't feel like that when I get home, that I can't wait to take everything off.

It's very comfortable.

Peggy: So in the black, you've got a black in here to where you don't even see that.

That just looks almost like a black piping.

Ella: Right, it's a beautiful detail, and the way the jacket is made, every detail is just very well thought through, and we have a little-- Peggy: Like couture.

Ella: Like couture.

So we brought our traditions and our techniques into our sportswear, included with beautiful zippers that we use, and all the finishings inside are clean.

Peggy: The bouclé itself you said was made for you?

Ella: Yes, we have our bouclé made in France.

It is made specifically for us, and all of our colors and the way we wanted and how we wanted.

Peggy: So what about the print of the knit?

What about that?

Ella: This is a beautiful, beautiful print that was hand drawn for us specifically by an artist who is a very good friend of mine and also my student.

She has hand drawn every single part of this toile.

I wanted to have a very traditional element to our sportswear, so I wanted to have a golf toile, which I have not seen on the market before, but I gave the idea of what I wanted.

I wanted it to look like a very traditional toile with all the trees in the background and all the beautiful elements, and that was how we came with a beautiful toile.

Peggy: You know, it's interesting when I talk to you about this concept.

How long would you say it took you from inception to actually starting to where you produced it?

Ella: At least six months for the first collection.

Peggy: And that's fast.

Ella: It's fast.

Peggy: That's fast.

Ella: And we had a very small collection.

It had a bouclé jacket.

It had these beautiful art prints.

Actually, our first collection had a beautiful print that was made from an art--from a piece of art that was drawn by an artist.

It was called "Tulips."

I loved it.

I loved the colors.

Peggy: So this is a halter.

Ella: And we took the entire painting, we digitized it and created a repeatable print, and I just love it, and every-- so does everybody else.

So we made-- Peggy: And this whole thing is knit.

Ella: It's a knit mesh that is made-- Peggy: This whole thing is mesh.

Ella: Yes, it is a beautiful mesh that is made specifically for us with our prints, and when you have this little outfit on with a skirt, and-- Peggy: But these are all handmade.

Ella: All handmade in our studio.

Peggy: Okay, everything's US except for the fabrics?

Everything's US created.

Ella: The textiles come from Italy, these mesh textiles.

Peggy: I don't think I'd want to play golf in that.

It looks too good.

Ella: You can go party.

This is a beautiful outfit.

Peggy: All right, so can we talk?

I want to talk about all these, but I want to talk about cost.

Just curious, because many people are very guarded about their cost, and so I don't want to unravel anything, but at the same time, costs are always a factor, yes?

Ella: Absolutely.

Peggy: So how do you-- Ella: If we don't cost it or price it correctly, we cannot bring it to market.

The only way we can bring it to market is if we make sure that we take into consideration how much the fabric costs per garment, how much time it takes for us to produce the garment, and then obviously we want to make a little bit of money so that we can continue to do what we love doing and continue to empower our women wearing-- that love wearing these clothes, and also artisans that make these clothes.

Peggy: Sure, because it's all women.

Ella: Yes.

Peggy: It's all women.

You're women making for women, women on the golf-- you're not making men's golf clothes.

Ella: No, we don't.

Peggy: Yeah, okay.

All right, let's look at this one.

I love to look at all these clothes because I think they're just so beautiful.

This is so different.

Ella: You probably can tell that--again, this is bouclé, and you can probably tell that this is very much inspired by Chanel.

It's an inspiration that I have had throughout my career as a designer.

I've drawn from designers that have come before me like Chanel and Valentino and Balenciaga and so many more, and one of the things that I love about Chanel's design aesthetic is that she made clothing comfortable for women.

She revolutionized clothing in her time, and I drew inspiration from her.

She was actually one of the first people to design sportswear, so-- Peggy: Sportswear, what was called sportswear in those days?

Because this really wasn't even--anything like this was not even available.

Ella: She was the first person to use jersey-- Peggy: Oh, I see, okay.

Ella: In her collection.

So, jersey-- Peggy: Knit jersey.

Ella: Knit jersey we equate with sportswear because it's more comfortable.

Peggy: Sure, I mean, knits weren't even really around at that time.

Ella: No, she used a garment textile that was used for men's garments, men's underwear, and she used it for women's garments.

It was scandalous at the time, but it stuck because it was so comfortable.

Peggy: Yeah, jersey, that's amazing to know that those comfortable fabrics weren't available to us.

Ella: Right, they are available now, and we can make them as fabulous as we would like, and we can use all the trims.

Like, this is a very beautiful silhouette where we-- it's very simple.

It's finished with very dainty, pretty mesh that makes it look dainty, but it's really-- Peggy: I love how this is the mesh again.

You've taken the principles and just reincorporated it into everything else.

Ella: Yes, it makes everything very comfortable and dainty.

Peggy: And then the fused bouclé.

Ella: Bouclé is fused.

Peggy: So all the bouclé that you use is fused.

Ella: Yes, and that's what makes it performance, and it makes it washable, so you can put this jacket in a washing machine and be confident that it's gonna come out as good as new.

Peggy: Wow, so you've taken these concepts though now, and you've turned it into a ready-to-wear line-- Ella: Yes.

Peggy: That's marketed.

Ella: That's marketed.

Peggy: So that's when the cost has to very, very right on-- Ella: Yes.

Peggy: So that you're careful to come up at the end.

Ella: Yes, we make everything in our studio in Baltimore.

Everything is handmade, and everything is hand-cut.

We basically took the concepts of couture that we have, and we make pretty much every piece, not one-of-a-kind, but every one of them is made one at a time.

Peggy: This is just beautiful.

For the inspiration, do you think you look around?

Where do you get your inspiration?

Ella: I really draw inspiration from my previous work, from work that I continue to do in couture.

Like, I really love the toile.

I've always loved toile, and I think that toile is just so classic and so feminine, and especially now that it's very popular.

So I love using a little bit of toile.

I love trim, and so I incorporate everything into all the little details.

I mean, I think women love details, and-- Peggy: I think we love them, but I don't even know if we know we love them.

Is that a fair statement?

Ella: I think you're absolutely right.

Peggy: Sometimes when I look at something, I love it, and then when I work it backwards and say, "But why do I love it?"

it takes me a while to kind of study it.

And then a lot of times when I'm sewing something for myself, I'll say, "Ah, I don't want to do all that work, let's leave off the details," but I think what I've noticed is if you love the details, you've got to repeat the details.

It's an important part.

Ella: And also, I think that when you look at a garment that is rich in details, you don't even realize that you enjoy it so much more.

Peggy: I agree.

Ella: And also, when you make a garment that is rich in details, you truly take time to enjoy making the garment, and that's what makes this work.

Peggy: I think that's just such an important statement right there.

Ella: You know, there is this Rumi saying: "As you get on the way, the way appears."

Peggy: "As you get on the way."

Ella: "The way appears."

Peggy: "The way appears."

Ella: So you have to be in the moment, you have to design, you have to do things so that inspiration comes.

The muse does not visit you while you're sitting in the corner contemplating, it visits you when you're working.

Peggy: That's with everything in life, but I really like it, and it applies to sewing because I think so many times in sewing, for me, I try to control it too much.

I try to get down every detail before I start because we become cognizant of how much time they take, and we eliminate the time.

Ella: True.

Peggy: And I think that's a really important takeaway, because there are details here that you have not ignored.

Ella: They're very important.

Without the details, it's not really going to be the same.

Peggy: But they cost you.

Ella: They do.

Peggy: Isn't it tempting to take them away when they cost you?

Ella: Well, we listen to our customers very closely.

When the customers say, "We want to have a pocket in our underpanty and our skorts."

So we had a panty previously that consisted of three pieces to incorporate a pocket on each side of the panty.

It went to 27 pieces.

So you know, you have to cut 27 pieces.

Peggy: Wait a minute, how many was it originally?

Ella: Three.

Peggy: And it went to 27.

Ella: It went to 27, so it was a much more labor-intensive process to create a skort that had pockets.

Eventually our customers said, "We don't use those pockets."

Peggy: Go back to three pieces.

I think I would have invented a bag first.

Ella: So we did not decide to go back, but we did put pockets on the outside, and now we have pockets on the outside.

Peggy: And this is an example of like a little skirt.

Is this a skirt or a skort?

Ella: It's a skort.

All skorts have panties, and then they have pockets on the outside.

Peggy: So this was a solution instead of putting it in here?

Ella: Well, we actually kept the pocket over here because somebody can put their golf ball or whatever they want to put in there that they don't need immediate access to.

Peggy: And then added this, and this was only two more pieces.

Ella: Only two more pieces.

So I love this pocket because I travel in this type of skort all the time because I can put my phone in one pocket and my boarding pass in another, and I have everything I need right at my hand.

And speaking of bag, I love this bag.

It is such a great piece.

Peggy: Now, this is the same print.

Ella: It's the same print.

It is printed on French linen, and it's beautiful quality.

It's made by hand, and it's made in Maryland.

Peggy: It's beautiful.

So I wanted to just ask you quickly, these over here are--these are, I mean, these are really beautiful bouclés.

Ella: They are stunning.

Peggy: So now this is a pant.

Ella: It is, the bouclé itself is organic cotton, and blended with-- Peggy: The bouclé is organic cotton?

Ella: Organic cotton blended with recycled polyester made in France specifically for us.

Peggy: I mean, this is just beautiful.

So I mean, I guess what I love about this is how now I can just really see--I can go do some sporting, and yet I can throw something back on and really function in the day and not have to go-- Ella: And look good, and feel good.

Peggy: The details on this are beautiful, and it's interesting to me how the tone on tone, you just don't even see that until you really start to touch it.

In some it causes extreme contrast, but in others, it just becomes a part of the jacket.

Ella: And it's a beautiful, elegant solution to sportswear.

It is very, very comfortable.

Peggy: Ella, thank you.

Thank you for sharing these concepts with us.

They're just really gives us something great to think about in how to go through the process.

Ella: Thank you so much for having me.

Peggy: Thanks, Ella.

Beaded dance dresses began in European culture, and today they dazzle on dance floors all around the world.

Join me next time on "Fit 2 Stitch" as we explore easy techniques and smart methods from the master herself showing you how to make these stunning dresses both beautiful and affordable.

Don't miss it, beaded dresses like you've never seen before.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ announcer: "Fit 2 Stitch" is made possible by Kai Scissors, ♪♪♪ Reliable Corporation, ♪♪♪ Bennos Buttons, ♪♪♪ Plano Sewing Center, ♪♪♪ Elliott Berman Textiles, ♪♪♪ and WAWAK Sewing Supplies.

♪♪♪ To order a four DVD set of "Fit 2 Stitch" series 14, please visit our website at fit2stitch.com.