Katharine Hepburn — who created her own style “to save [her] the trouble of deciding which clothes to wear” — is being hailed as a fashion icon nearly 10 years after her death.
Forty items from her personal clothing collection — including her trademark khakis, vintage movie costumes, stage gowns and even jodhpurs —went on display yesterday at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center.
Hepburn saved almost all the costumes from her 60-year-plus film and stage career.
Visitors can see, for example, the elegant white satin-and-lace wedding dress she wore in the 1934 Broadway drama “The Lake,” as well as the floppy Edith Head-designed hat she used to staredown John Wayne in the 1975 Western “Rooster Cogburn.”
Also on display are outfits from some of her most famous movies, including “The Philadelphia Story,” “Adam’s Rib,” “Stage Door,” “State of the Union,”and “Long Day’s Journey Into Night.”
The off-stage Hepburn was best known for what she called her “uniform” — khaki pants and open collar shirts. Seven pairs of the khakis are on display on mannequin legs n the exhibition, “Katharine Hepburn: Dressed for Stage and Screen.”