How to Choose a Clara Dress for The Nutcracker
17 Sep, 2026
Choosing her Clara Dress for The Nutcracker Ballet
I have designed a lot of Nutcracker dresses over the years, and Clara is always one of the interesting ones.
You would think choosing a Clara dress would be easy. Pretty dress. Christmas. Done.
Not exactly.
Clara has to look special enough that the audience immediately understands that she is important, but she is also part of the Party Scene. Her dress has to work with the rest of the production, work with the choreography, look good under stage lighting and — maybe most importantly — still look like a young girl’s dress.
We get asked all the time what a Clara dress is supposed to look like.
The answer is: there really isn’t just on
