Dame Julie Andrews, 88, is seen for the first time in seven months as she makes rare public appearance on shopping trip in The Hamptons with the use of a walking cane

Dame Julie Andrews was seen for the first time in seven months on Monday as she stepped out in The Hamptons for a shopping trip.

The Sound of Music actress, 88, made the rare public appearance and used a walking cane to support herself as she went from one of the stores into her car.

She looked as chic as ever in a white jacket and black trousers and accessorised with gold and blue earrings.

Julie completed her outfit with a comfortable pair of blue trainers and wore her hair in a short cropped style. 

She was helped by a friend as she got into the waiting vehicle and looked in good spirits.  

Dame Julie Andrews was seen for the first time in seven months on Monday as she stepped out in The Hamptons for a shopping trip

The Sound of Music actress, 88, made the rare public appearance and used a walking cane to support herself as she went from one of the stores into her car

She looked as chic as ever in a white jacket and black trousers and accessorised with gold and blue earrings

Over her seven-decade career, the Oscar winner has had a slew of memorable roles as a star of the stage and the screen. 

But, arguably, none of them are more iconic than Mary Poppins, the Walt Disney film directed by Robert Stevenson, with songs written and composed by the Sherman Brothers.

The 1964 film, which combines live-action and animation, was actually Andrews' first feature film of her career, which ended up winning her the Academy Award for Best Actress.

In an interview with Vanity Fair, last year, the Surrey, England native revealed that it was the music that first grabbed her attention and drew her to the role. 

'It was a brand new thing in my life that I'd never done before. It was for Walt Disney, of course, and the songs in Mary Poppins had a kind of Vaudeville quality to them,' Andrews explained.

'I think it's what attracted me to the role, because all that kind of Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious and Jolly Holiday music was very much like the kind of things that you hear in English vaudeville.'

Considering that her parents were vaudeville performers and that she, herself, was trained in the genre while growing up, it's easy to see why Andrews would be attracted to the role and the project as a whole.

Along with the familiarity of the music, the actress also revealed how the nanny's costume design, which came from the mind of her then-husband, Tony Walton, helped her grasp the magical qualities of the Mary Poppins character.

Julie completed her outfit with a comfortable pair of blue trainers and wore her hair in a short cropped style

She was helped by a friend as she got into the waiting vehicle and looked in good spirits as she stepped out

Over her seven-decade career, the Oscar winner has had a slew of memorable roles as a star of the stage and the screen

Andrews recalled that Walton explained to her in depth why Mary Poppins had such fun fabrics lining the inside of her clothes, but no crazy outward designs.

'Because I think that's what gives her pleasure. Very formal on the outside, and a little bit wicked on the inside,' Walton said of Mary Poppins at the time, which turned out to be invaluable information for Andrews.

'It completely gave me a clue as to her character. Big, big help for me,' the performer would confess.

From a screenplay by Bill Walsh and Don DaGradi, based on P. L. Travers's book series Mary Poppins, the film version was released in August 1964 to critical acclaim and commercial success.

It went on to become the highest-grossing film of 1964, and receive 13 Academy Awards nominations, a record for any film released by Walt Disney Studios, winning five, including Best Original Music Score.

After starring alongside her parents as a child actress and singer, and appearing on the West End in 1948, Andrews rose to prominence starring in such Broadway musicals as My Fair Lady (1956) and Camelot (1960).

The role in Mary Poppins (1964) kicked off her film career, and was quickly followed up the next year with the role Maria von Trapp in The Sound Of Music (1965).

Over the course of the next 20 years she worked with such acclaimed directors as husband Blake Edwards, George Roy Hill and Alfred Hitchcock, and starred in films like Hawaii (1966), Torn Curtain (1966), Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967), Star! (1968), The Tamarind Seed (1974), 10 (1979), S.O.B. (1981), Victor/Victoria (1982), That's Life (1986) and Duet For One (1986).

More recently, Andrews has voiced the narrator Lady Whistledown in the two seasons of the Netflix series Bridgerton (2020-present).

But, arguably, none of them are more iconic than Mary Poppins, the Walt Disney film directed by Robert Stevenson, with songs written and composed by the Sherman Brothers