Miss Celie's Pants

For most women who shop at Gap and J Crew, maybe Nordstrom or a local boutique for something fancy, couture is simply a foreign concept. They might have caught a glimpse of it during a television awards show, but not many have run their hands over true couture quality, and even fewer have been lucky enough to wear it.

But in a Timonium office building, of all places, women for have been learning for the past few months how to ply the elusive trade.

Ella Pritsker, a Russian native who immigrated to the United States in her 20s, started the Maryland Academy of Couture Arts last year. With the Towson Town Center nearby and York Road’s discount shops around the corner, she is introducing women to the world beyond ready-to-wear, where with fine fabric and meticulous attention to detail, a dress, Pritsker likes to say, “can cost as much as a house.”

With the school, Pritsker hopes to preserve what she considers to be an all-but-lost art, the high art of sewing.

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