Katharine Hepburn’s Revolutionary Wardrobe Comes To Appleton

The clothes of Hollywood and Broadway icon Katharine Hepburn are going on display in Appleton’s Trout Museum.

The personal collection of Hepburn’s performance clothes features more than 40 items the actress wore on the Broadway stage and the Hollywood screen.

“Why she kept the things she kept we don’t know,” says Jean Druesedow, who directs the Kent State University Fashion Museum. “We only wish we did.”

Druesedow, who is the author of the book, “Katharine Hepburn: Rebel Chic,” was invited by the actress’s estate to a warehouse in Connecticut to inspect items that were instructed to be given to charities or schools. The display at Appleton’s Trout Museum includes an iconic little black dress – the evening dress from Adam’s Rib, which Druesedow calls “the star of the show.”

If clothes make the man, costumes help make the actress. Seeing them up close makes Hepburn seem more “human.”

“You can learn that someone like Hepburn had a 20-inch waist, a 23-inch ribcage, and not much more either above or below,” says Druesdow. “The designers were very skillful at giving her a figure that was absolutely glamorous on film.”

Hepburn was notably 5-foot-7 at a time when most actresses were no more than 5-foot-2.

Besides glamorous gowns, the display includes many pairs of slacks. When Hepburn began her acting career in the 1930s, it was scandalous for a woman to wear pants. But she didn’t care.

“She was one of the first people to wear slacks in public and popularize it – [to] make it OK,” says Druesedow.

Other non-American actresses like Marlene Dietrich and Greta Garbo had worn slacks. “But along comes Hepburn, who’s from an old New England family – American top to toe – and she wanted to be comfortable,” says Druesedow.

The Trout Museum normally mounts fine arts exhibitions. Angie Bleck, a spokesperson for the museum, says fashion is now considered to be just that – fine art.

“There are a lot of exhibitions throughout the country right now focusing on fashion design,” says Bleck. “The Chicago Art Institute has the impressionists with a lot of the paintings and costumes that went along with the period.”

In 1981 Hepburn won an Oscar for her role in “On Golden Pond.” The Trout exhibit has an ensemble of khaki pants with a blue shirt worn over a white turtle neck. It looks like something the actress wore in that film. But Druesedow can’t verify it.

“There’s a makeup stain on that collar that looks to me like it would be in the right place if she were nuzzling Henry Fonda,” she says. “But there is no indication that it is really from ‘On Golden Pond.’”

Hepburn died 10 years ago at the age of 96. Her movie career was spent at the studios RKO and MGM. Her Broadway career included a 1969 portrayal of another fashion icon, Coco Chanel.

The exhibit begins September 13 and runs until mid-December.