Where did you look to first for inspiration to design this beloved musical?
Julie: Well, I grew up watching the film like most people, and there’s iconic moments in the film that I think you have to you have to use, don’t you? But I also looked at the Austrian national clothing such as the Tyrolean jackets, and the lederhosen for the kids, and I just had to have some of that in there, as well as inspiration from the flowers of Austria.
I like to think about each scene it as if it were a painting, and so I look at a lot of paintings from the time, and that sort of helps me to pick out the right colours and patterns to keep it accurate to the time period. So it’s mostly all in the research, lots and lots of research!
Now, tell us, how do you even begin to go about solving a wardrobe problem like Maria?
Julie: I had a colour palette in mind for Maria, and I wanted to have florals as well intertwined in a lot of her costumes but also keeping it simple. We start with the iconic novice nun habit outfit, which is so famously associated with this show, and then we move into the dress she wears when she goes to the family – the dress that no one else wants – which ironically actually is one of my favourites of the whole show because it’s out of a really nice fabric and it really hangs nicely. When she goes on to making her own dresses, you start to feel there’s a progression from the desaturated outfits she has from the abbey to these much brighter and bolder costumes that hints at where her happiness truly lies and her heart belongs.
An iconic moment for me in the film is the wedding scene. Well, specifically the wedding dress. I mean, that wedding dress Julie Andrews wears is beautiful. So, I wanted to pay homage to that. Because it is set in the late 30s, I wanted to keep in that period, but I just wanted to keep it simple, because the nuns would have made it, but with a little bit of something that’s more like a pearly diamanté collar on it. I wanted the veil to be really long, but really simple as well, because it was all about the laurel leaves on her headdress, and I just wanted to have the tulle in the veil catch the light. And it does, because she walks up the stairs and the lighting is so lovely, and It just catches it. It makes a really nice moment.
How did you tackle designing the strapping Captain Von Trapp’s costumes?
Julie: When I first looked at what Captain Von Trapps’s style might be, I knew it had to be smart and that his character is not exactly jovial, so his outfits had to initially showcase this exterior sternness, but give a little peek also to his softer side.
I wanted him actually to be all in grey at first, but when Ali Watt came in for the fitting, it just didn’t suit him, and then I thought about some of the really nice blue and navy period suits we have in stock, and so when Ali tried them on, we could instantly see that’s him, that’s the character, and it really suited him a lot. So I went with what suited Ali and his interpretation of the character, and sometimes you end up doing just that –you really have to take both the character and the actor into account when you are designing.
What were some of the challenges of costuming the seven Von Trapp children?
Julie: It involved lists, and lists, and more lists! I had to have a big chart for the children, and, because we have two casts [their are two teams of young company for The Sound of Music], you try your best to design and make the costumes in a way that can end up fitting both actors, so that can be challenging, especially as they tend to grow a lot between fittings!
My absolute favourite costume of theirs is from the ending scene. I really like it because you have these colours, I just love the colours of the maroon and the gold and also, we had this jacket in the store for years and years – never used – and I kept it because I liked the colours. And I thought, you know what, I can use that jacket in The Sound of Music for this last scene. And so all the children have a section of this jacket on their costume, because I really like the detail and the colours of it.
The Sound of Music is on at Pitlochry Festival Theatre from 14 Nov – 21 Dec 2025