NKorea says it has detained a US citizen

North Korea said Friday that an American citizen has been detained after confessing to unspecified crimes, confirming news reports about his arrest at a time when Pyongyang is facing criticism from Washington for launching a long-range rocket last week.
The American was identified as Pae Jun Ho in a brief dispatch issued by the state-run Korean Central News Agency in Pyongyang. News reports in the U.S. and South Korea said Pae is known in his home state of Washington as Kenneth Bae, a 44-year-old tour operator of Korean descent.
An expert said he is likely to become a bargaining chip for the North, an attempt to draw the U.S. into talks. Five other Americans known to have been detained in North Korea since 2009 were all eventually released.
North Korean state media said Pae arrived in the far northeastern city of Rajin on Nov. 3 as part of a tour.
Rajin is part of a special economic zone not far from Yanji, China, that has sought to draw foreign investors and tourists over the past year. Yanji, home to many ethnic Korean Chinese, also serves as a base for Christian groups that shelter North Korean defectors.
"In the process of investigation, evidence proving that he committed a crime against (North Korea) was revealed. He admitted his crime," the KCNA dispatch said.
The North said the crimes were "proven through evidence" but did not elaborate.
KCNA said consular officials from the Swedish Embassy in Pyongyang visited Pae on Friday. Sweden represents the United States in diplomatic affairs in North Korea since Washington and Pyongyang do not have diplomatic relations.
Karl-Olof Andersson, Sweden's ambassador to North Korea, told The Associated Press he could not comment on the case and referred the matter to the U.S. State Department.
The State Department was not immediately able to provide any additional information about the report.
The operator of a Korean language website for the Korean community in the Northwest, Chong Tae Kim of JoySeattle.com, said the detainee's father lives in Korea and his mother lives in Lynnwood, Washington.
"She hopes the State Department and Swedish Embassy help with his release," he said Friday. "She's trying not to speak to reporters, fearing that could affect her son's release."
The office of U.S. Rep. Suzan DelBene says it has reached out to the mother and is pressing the State Department for information.
"We are very concerned about it and seeing what can be done on our end to help with this," said spokesman Viet Shelton.
State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell on Friday would only say that they were aware of the detention and that Swedish Embassy in Pyongyang is providing consular services.
"We can, indeed, confirm that a U.S. citizen has been detained in North Korea," Ventrell said, adding that he could not say more because of privacy restrictions.
In Seoul, the Segye Ilbo newspaper reported last week that Bae had been taking tourists on a five-day trip to the North when he was arrested. The newspaper cited unidentified sources.
News of the arrest comes as North Korea is celebrating the launch of a satellite into space on Dec. 12, in defiance of calls by the U.S. and others to cancel a liftoff widely seen as an illicit test of ballistic missile technology.
The announcement of the American's detainment could be a signal from the North that it wants dialogue with the United States, said Cheong Seong-chang, an analyst at the private Sejong Institute in South Korea. He said trips by former U.S. Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter to North Korea to secure the release of other detained Americans created a mood for U.S.-North Korea talks.
"North Korea knows sanctions will follow its rocket launch. But in the long run, it needs an excuse to reopen talks after the political atmosphere moves past sanctions," Cheong said.
Cheong said he expects that the American will be tried and convicted in coming months. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has the power to grant amnesty and will exercise it as a bargaining chip, Cheong said.
State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said earlier this week that Washington had been trying to reach out to Kim.
"Instead, that was met not only with an abrogation of agreements that had been made by the previous North Korean regime, but by missile activity both in April and in December," she told reporters.
She said Washington had no choice but to put pressure on Pyongyang, and was discussing with its allies how to "further isolate" the regime.
In April 2009, a North Korean rocket launch took place while two American journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, were in North Korean custody after allegedly trying to sneak into the country across the Tumen River dividing the North from China.
They were sentenced to 12 years of hard labor before being released on humanitarian grounds after Clinton flew to Pyongyang to negotiate their release.
Subsequently, three other Americans were arrested and eventually released by North Korea. All three are believed to have been accused of illegally spreading Christianity.
North Korea has several sanctioned churches in Pyongyang but frowns on the distribution of Bibles and other religious materials by foreigners. Interaction between North Koreans and foreigners is strictly regulated.

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Gunmen kill 11 Pakistanis, Afghans in SW Pakistan

An official says gunmen have killed eleven Pakistanis and Afghans in a border town of southwestern Pakistan as they were trying to cross to Iran to travel on to Europe as illegal migrants.
Local government official Zubair Ahmed said Saturday the shooting took place late Friday in the Sunsar town of southwestern Baluchistan province.
He said the dead and wounded were Afghans and Pakistanis.
It was not immediately clear who was behind the attack, but hundreds of such Pakistanis and Afghans are captured by Iranian border guards every year for illegally trying to travel to Europe to find better jobs.
Iran deports such detainees after questioning.
Quetta is the capital of impoverished Baluchistan province, where nationalist groups have also waged a low-level insurgency.

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People flee Japan nuke disaster to faraway Okinawa

 Okinawa is about as far away as one can get from Fukushima without leaving Japan, and that is why Minaho Kubota is here.
Petrified of the radiation spewing from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant that went into multiple meltdowns last year, Kubota grabbed her children, left her skeptical husband and moved to the small southwestern island. More than 1,000 people from the disaster zone have done the same thing.
"I thought I would lose my mind," Kubota told The Associated Press in a recent interview. "I felt I would have no answer for my children if, after they grew up, they ever asked me, 'Mama, why didn't you leave?'"
Experts and the government say there have been no visible health effects from the radioactive contamination from Fukushima Dai-ichi so far. But they also warn that even low-dose radiation carries some risk of cancer and other diseases, and exposure should be avoided as much as possible, especially the intake of contaminated food and water. Such risks are several times higher for children and even higher for fetuses, and may not appear for years.
Okinawa has welcomed the people from Fukushima and other northeastern prefectures (states) affected by the March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami that set off the nuclear disaster. Okinawa is offering 60,000 yen ($750) a month to help relocating families of three or four pay the rent, and lower amounts for smaller families.
"We hope they feel better, maybe refreshed," said Okinawan official Masakazu Gunji.
Other prefectures have offered similar aid, but Okinawa's help is relatively generous and is being extended an extra year to three years for anyone applying by the end of this year.
Most people displaced by the disaster have relocated within or near Fukushima, but Okinawa, the only tropical island in Japan, is the most popular area for those who have chosen prefectures far from the nuclear disaster. An escape to Okinawa underlines a determination to get away from radiation and, for some, distrust toward Tokyo Electric Power Co., the utility that operates Fukushima Dai-ichi.
Kazue Sato lived in fear of radiation because the roof of her home in Iwaki, a major city in Fukushima, was destroyed by the earthquake.
And so she moved with her husband, a chef, back to Okinawa, where she had grown up. She now lives in her grandparents' home and hopes to turn it into a coffee shop with her husband.
But Sato is still struggling with depression, especially because her old friends criticized her for what they thought were her exaggerated fears about radiation. She struggles with a sense of guilt about having abandoned Fukushima.
"Little children have to wear masks. People can't hang their laundry outdoors," she said. "Some people can't get away even if they want to. I feel so sorry for them."
Sato and Kubota are joining a class-action lawsuit being prepared against the government and Tokyo Electric on behalf of Fukushima-area residents affected by the meltdowns. It demands an apology payment of 50,000 yen ($625) a month for each victim until all the radiation from the accident is wiped out, a process that could take decades, if ever, for some areas.
Independent investigations into the nuclear disaster have concluded that the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant was unprepared for the massive tsunami, in part because of the nuclear industry's cozy relationship with government regulators.
"We think people have the right to live in an environment not polluted by radiation that may harm their health, and that right has been violated by this accident," Izutaro Managi, one of the case's lawyers, said in a meeting earlier this month for plaintiffs in Naha, a major Okinawan city.
Japan's statute of limitations requires that the lawsuit be filed no later than March 11, 2014. About 20 of the evacuees in Okinawa have signed on to the lawsuit, which has gathered 100 other people in the three weeks since it began.
Kubota, who now works part time for an Okinawa magazine publisher, said the problem is that no one is taking responsibility for the accident.
"Seeking accountability through a lawsuit may feel like such a roundabout effort. But in the end, it's going to be the best shortcut," she said.
She is getting health checkups for her children, fretting over any discovered problems, including anemia, fevers and nosebleeds.
Her fears are heightened by the fact that she and her children had lived in their car right after the disaster, which had liquefied the land and destroyed their home. They had unknowingly played outdoors while the nuclear plants had been exploding, she recalled.
The disaster ended up separating her family. Her husband refused to leave his dentist practice in Ibaraki Prefecture. They argued over whether to relocate, but she knew she had to leave on her own when he said: "There is nothing we can do."
These days, he visits her and their two boys, ages 8 and 12, in her new apartment in Okinawa on weekends. He sends her money, something he didn't do at first.
"I wake up every day and feel thankful my children are alive. I have been through so much. I have been heartbroken. I have been so afraid," she said.

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Afghan leader: Foreigners to blame for corruption

Afghanistan's president accused on Saturday the countries that fund hisgovernment and military with enabling the widespread corruption that undermines his efforts to establish rule of law in the war-wracked country.

Graft and payoffs are widely recognized as a major problem facing Afghanistan as the government works to establish authority over a volatile country and win the trust of the people over from the Taliban insurgency. The country regularly ranks among the most corrupt in the world in indexes and nearly every Afghan has stories of having to pay a bribe to a police officer or a government official.

International donors have long argued that they are trying to help Karzai's administration clean up the endemic corruption but are stymied by his unwillingness to prosecute political allies. Karzai in turn has repeatedly said that he has not been given the ability to control the billions of dollars flowing in to Afghanistan from foreign countries and so has not been able to police the funding.

"Corruption in Afghanistan is a reality, a bitter reality," Karzai said in a nationally televised speech. "The part of this corruption that is in our offices is a small part: that is bribes. The other part of corruption, the large part, is hundreds of millions dollars that are not ours. We shouldn't blame ourselves for that. That part is from others and imposed on us."

Karzai argued that foreign donors give contracts to high-ranking Afghan officials or to their relatives in an effort to gain influence over the government, thereby sowing the seeds for corruption.

As an example, he brought up his half-brother Ahmed Wali Karzai, who was seen as the main power broker in southern Kandahar province before he was assassinated by insurgents in 2011. Karzai recalled a conversation with former U.S. commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal in which McChrystal told Karzai to rein in his brother because he was corrupt. Karzai said he pointed out that it was the U.S. government, not the Afghan government, that was awarding contracts to Ahmed Wali Karzai.

"I asked him, why have you given contracts to the president's brother? Why give to him and to other high ranking government officials?" Karzai told the crowd assembled for the speech at a high school in the capital.

The question of the roots of corruption in Afghanistan is only going to become more important in the coming years, as donors have made much of their future funding conditional on evidence that the Afghan government is cleaning up the pervasive system off payoffs and patronage. And there has been debate within the Afghan government over who to blame.

Even at Saturday's event, Karzai's top anti-corruption official spoke first and pointed his finger at other Afghan officials, without mentioning the international donors. He said that the courts have not done enough to prosecute corruption cases and administration officials and lawmakers need to be forced to explain things like large property acquisitions.

"The system is the problem," Azizullah Ludin told the crowd.

Karzai has repeatedly taken populist stances against his foreign allies, placing blame on them for many of the country's ills. In the past, he has said that NATO local offices known as Provincial Reconstruction Teams undermine the Afghan government's authority by doling out money directly to the public, and that foreign countries encourage criminality by funding private security companies that operate outside the law. The foreign security companies have since been shut down and the Provincial Reconstruction Teams are being phased out.

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Mob in Pakistan kills man accused of burning Quran

 A mob in southern Pakistan stormed a police station to seize a mentally unstable Muslim man accused of burning a copy of Islam's holy book, beat him to death, and then set his body afire, police said Saturday.
The case is likely to raise further concerns about the country's harsh blasphemy laws, which can result in a death sentence or life in prison to anyone found guilty. Critics say an accusation or investigation alone can lead to deaths, as people take the law into their own hands and kill those accused of violating it. Police stations and even courts have been attacked by mobs.
Local police official Bihar-ud-Din said police arrested the man on Friday after being informed by residents that he had burned a Quran inside a mosque where he had been staying for a night.
An angry mob of more than 200 people then broke into the police station in the southern town of Dadu and took the accused man, who they say was under questioning. Din said police tried their best to save the man's life but were unable to stop the furious crowd.
He said that police had arrested 30 people for suspected involvement in the attack, while the head of the local police station and seven officers had been suspended.
Past attempts by governments in predominantly Muslim Pakistan to review these laws have met with violent opposition from hardline Islamist parties.

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New, emerging talent kicks off Paris Fashion Week

 Fashion week in Paris is always a race against time.
Paris — the last city after New York, London and Milan to host shows — is offering up 95 frenetic catwalk spectacles back-to-back over eight days at opposite ends of the French capital.
So it's perhaps fitting that the spring-summer 2013 season got going behind a giant clock: The iconic timekeeper of Paris' grand Gare de l'Est train station. The setting may have been grand but the shows on the first day in Paris are often low-key, a showcase for emerging talent.
Young knitwear designer and Rick Owens alumnus Alice Lemoine emerged from the shadows of her former mentor to produce an unassuming but highly accomplished show in rich spring colors.
Belgian-born designer Anthony Vaccarello — whose star has been on a rise since Gwyneth Paltrow graced the cover of Harper's Bazaar in one of his dresses — delivered a slick and revealing show Tuesday, channeling black and white in an unusual summer collection.
South Korean designer Moon Young Hee also threw away the color wheel to produce a sophisticated, demure show, while Impasse de la Defense mixed bold colors with retro and street styles.
Wednesday's shows will include London's enfant terrible Gareth Pugh, Guy Laroche and Dries Van Noten.
IMPASSE DE LA DEFENSE
Post-punk design house Impasse de la Defense, tucked away behind the clock of the Gare de l'Est, got extra street cred as loud train announcements punctuated their colorful show.
Their eclectic and contemporary mix included vibrant patchwork dresses, outre tulle bridal skirts and large shawls printed with images of clock architecture. Their soundtrack — a single harmonica played by a man who looked like a busker — added a dash of boho insouciance to the many the casual, loose-fitting, splash-dyed dresses.
Designer Karim Bonnet said he was channeling German street style after a holiday there last summer — but at times, the clock seemed to turn to '70s flower power. The imaginative prints of cameras and the spines of novels on large shawls were a notable success.
At times, though, the sheer size of the shawls — which models had wrapped around them — made them look clumsy.
LE MOINE TRICOTE
No longer just for grannies, knitwear has finally been made cool — a youthful facelift courtesy of Le Moine Tricote.
Armed with two 12mm (half-inch) needles, a ball of wool and no rules, designer Alice Lemoine set about this collection with no idea what clothes she would make.
"I just let the needles lead and I make all sorts of different shapes and panels," Lemoine said backstage, wearing a wooly cardigan. "I then just fuse it together; not exactly patchwork, but the same process."
The result? An architectural — and highly huggable — display of some 14 soft, open knit looks — set off with creative spirals, polygons and geometric shapes.
Lemoine gives freedom to the natural weight of wool — producing some sumptuous effects, like one plunging gray and camel column dress. Lest we forget it's summer, it's all served up with a refreshing palette of sky blue, navy, pearl beige purple and white.
Splashes of delicate, tightly knitted silk alongside breezy organza undergarments and the occasional peplum was a new addition this season.
ANTHONY VACCARELLO
Sticking to black and white is one sure way to stand out in spring collections, which are famed for their use of color. But at the moment, it's not as if Anthony Vaccarello needs the attention. His recent fashion headlines include a design stint at Collette as part of Vogue's Fashion Night Out.
In this uber-sexy, color-free summer offering, the models' legs did the talking: Micro skirts with a tight, sweeped draping.
There was a distinct feeling of previous seasons' Milan shows — plunging necklines, draped tops with eyelets and loose shoulder-strong jackets. At times, the draping invoked a Grecian toga look.

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Individual shows boldly stamp Paris fashion week

 Coco Chanel once said: "The most courageous act is still to think for yourself."
Day five of Paris Fashion Week showed that even today the legendary fashion designer's words ring true.
Saturday presented a gold mine of eclectic and individual shows: Each one with a unique stamp of their designer.
London-based Vivienne Westwood led the crowd, celebrating Queen Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee, but travelling — as she did — via Japan, Russia, Spain and Africa.
Westwood is the only designer on the Paris fashion calendar — or perhaps anywhere — who can cross the globe and several centuries, mixing up Bangkok-style catwomen, Chinese tea prints, tropical cowboys, Velasquez wenches, the Ballets Russes, and still produce a coherent and unified show.
Viktor & Rolf, meanwhile, went back to their signature plays on oversized proportion to produce a glitzy show — as they prepare to celebrate 20 years since they founded the label.
The epitome of femininity, Cacharel, explored spring through the natural colors of mother nature, in a trademark delicate display.
Sunday's shows include Kenzo, Celine and Hermes.
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VIVIENNE WESTWOOD
"Global exotic," is how English designer Vivienne Westwood described her brilliant and wacky spring-summer 2013 show, hosted on terra mater in Paris' British Embassy.
Disparate encyclopedic fashion references gelled together — amazingly — owing to her own, very British, eccentricity.
Westwood cited Sergei Diaghilev's "Ballets Russes" — the early 20th century's most famous ballet company — as a key inspiration.
The influential troupe used exotic styles with billowing trousers and turbans — which was evoked in many of the baggy globe-trotting looks.
One of the nicest looks came in a series of modified Japanese kimonos.
One in light gray silk, with wide bateau collar, had fluttering hoop panels that fluttered by.
Above all else, Westwood — who's 71 — has lost none of her humor.
There was a special guest star — a model portraying Queen Elizabeth II. She clutched a handbag in a crown and demure gray silk dress. In this cameo, unlike in the Olympic Games opening ceremony in which a queen look-a-like parachuted into the main stadium, the model just walked in through the embassy door.
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VIKTOR & ROLF
Viktor & Rolf were feeling reflective, looking back on almost two decades since founding their fashion house, and that was evident Saturday in their oversized spring-summer ode to 70s pleated glamor.
"We were in a reflective mood..." said Viktor Horsting, one half of the famed Dutch design duo which is approaching its 20th anniversary.
Not ones to normally take things quite so literally, the inseparable Viktor and Rolf channeled mirrors in their oversized spring-summer show.
The designers, who founded their Amsterdam-based fashion house in 1993, sent models through a reflective tunnel onto a catwalk wearing mainly black, white and silver ensembles that featured blinding mirror appliques on sumptuous silks.
Oversized proportion — a signature mark — produced some hits.
Giant bows in soft pink and purple were used high or low on the waist to sumptuous effect.
But there were some small misses in proportion, too: One tubular floor-length skirt had rose-shaped mirror appliques whose size competed with the model's head.
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CACHAREL
Cacharel perfectly captured the fresh mood of spring, in a feminine collection — typical of the popular French house — that brought aquatic life to the catwalk.
Free hanging A-line slip dresses and gently flaring peplums and skirts Saturday, floated alongside prints of goldfish skin, anemones and underwater tea flower bloom.
This spring-summer 2013 collection was also a celebration of the natural world in its careful palette the Cerulean blue of sky, orange of sea coral and tea green.
But perhaps nature is in the house DNA: After all, designer Jean Bousquet who founded the house in 1962, named it after a small, beautifully striped dabbling duck with the same name.
Today's designers Ling Liu and Dawei Sun keep these codes, therefore, adding this season a touch of contemporary graphic prints.
The gentle blurring made this collection a visual treat.
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MARTIN GRANT
Australian Martin Grant is not a household name, but he has a solid reputation in the fashion world and a string of celebrity followers like Juliette Binoche, Kate Hudson and Cate Blanchett.
Saturday's clean and on-trend collection proves it's little wonder.
"I wanted to play with volumes," Grant said backstage, referring to the many looks which had elongated peplums and jacket-skirts, twinned with black shorts — as seen in Raf Simons' show for Dior.
Black and navy was used well in A-line with trapeze silhouettes, and accentuated midriffs — one of the big parts of this season's fashion conversation —which nicely nipped the silhouettes.
One of the colors of the season, vermilion, was used perfectly as shards of color, or completely covering dresses.

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Anniversary Surprise for Husband at Airport: Wife Wearing Wedding Dress

Lacy Matthews, 48, of Parker, Colo., is certainly getting more wear out of her wedding dress.
On Oct. 3, she put it to good use again, exactly 14 years to the day after she originally wore it. At 8:15 in the morning, Matthews surprised her husband, Derek Matthews, 38, at the Denver airport dressed in her wedding dress and holding a huge sign that read "Derek, I'll do it all over again. I love you."
Derek Matthews returned from a business trip early in the morning so that he could spend the entire day with his blushing bride.

Courtesy Lacy Matthews
"We agreed not to spend a lot of money, but I wanted to say I love you, and I'm here for the long haul. I wanted to do it in a big way. I've done cards, done scrapbooks, but I wanted to do something big this time. I wanted to do something to make him feel really important and special," Lucy Matthews told ABC News.
Matthews never really tried to preserve her dress, but it was still in good enough condition to wear it again.
"It was kind of just crammed in a box in the basement, wrinkled with stains. I just dabbed those out a little bit. It still served the purpose," she said.
She eagerly waited by the arrival escalators for her husband to come up the steps.
"Every man that came up that escalator, all ages, business people, the guys barefoot coming off the beach, everybody's reaction was very positive," said Matthews.
When the moment finally arrived, when her husband at last came up the escalator, he was distracted and not paying attention, since he had no idea what was in store for him. But when he finally glanced up, he was shocked by what he saw just a few feet away. It was his bride, all over again.
"The sweetest thing he said afterward was that on our wedding day, he got chills when I came around the corner. He said, 'I was expecting you to walk around the corner that day, so there was all this anticipation. But when I was coming up the escalator, I wasn't expecting you at all, especially in a dress. I'm so glad we're together.' He kept telling me, 'I'm going numb, I'm going numb,'" he said.
Courtesy Lacy Matthews
For Lucy Matthews, the moment meant a lot, as she is currently fighting a chronic disease, a type of ulcerative colitis that can turn into colon cancer. The disease, along with a series of other unfortunate happenings in the couple's life, has inspired the two to adopt a "live every day to its fullest" mentality.
"My husband has been hit by lighting and lived to tell about it, and I myself have a chronic illness. It was life threatening. I continue to get a form of chemo every six weeks. I get the highest dose you can get. Our mentality as a family is just try to live your lives where every day is a gift," said Matthews.
"My son was 8 when I first got sick. I always have a party for my birthday. I celebrate it, because it's better than the alternative. Our whole family lives like that. Every year, every birthday, every anniversary is celebrated big."
Although she knew she wanted to do something on a large scale, Matthews admits she almost didn't go through with the wedding dress idea.
"I'm a very outgoing person, but it was not easy to walk into the airport in a wedding dress with a sign. It was very embarrassing. But leaving your comfort zone for someone you love is the best way to spend your day," Matthews said.
There was one thing that day, however, that surprised her the most.
"I was really taken by how many people asked, 'What anniversary is it?' When I told them 14th, they'd say, 'Oh it's not a milestone then?' But why isn't 14 a milestone?" Matthews asked. "The 25th, the 15t h, every year is big, especially in this day and age when people give up so easily. That was one of the things that surprised me the most. That it wasn't' a milestone according to society. I think every day is as milestone."

Courtesy Lacy Matthews
Afraid our society has completely lost the art of celebration, Matthews is attempting to prove every day is a gift.
"We've lost the art of celebration. We should celebrate how much we love each other, celebrate that we have life every day. I just think that every birthday, every anniversary, and indeed, every day is a celebration and a gift and we should treat it as a gift," Matthews said.
She and her husband are still as happy as they were on their wedding day, especially for Lucy Matthews, since she's still able to fit into her dress.
"I was trying to bless him, and I got blessed doing it. Hundreds of people took my picture, and our picture. One guy walked by and told me 'You just made my day. Love is still alive,'" she said.

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NYC exhibition: Katharine Hepburn as fashion icon

A new exhibition is hailing the fashion sense of Katharine Hepburn, whose trademark khakis and open-collar shirts were decidedly unconventional in the 1930s and 40s, when girdles and stockings were the order of the day.
The fiercely independent Hepburn famously once said: "Anytime I hear a man say he prefers a woman in a skirt, I say, 'Try one. Try a skirt.'"
But skirts and dresses abound in "Katharine Hepburn: Dressed for Stage and Screen" at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, which opens Thursday.
Hepburn, who died in 2003 at age 96, saved almost all the costumes from her long career that included four Oscars and such memorable films as "The Philadelphia Story," ''The African Queen," ''Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" and "On Golden Pond." Forty are on view at the exhibition, which runs through Jan. 12.
One of the first things visitors will notice is how slender Hepburn was — she had a 20-inch waist — and a grouping of seven khaki pants artfully arranged on a pair of mannequin legs.
"The fact that she wore slacks and wanted to be comfortable influenced women's ready-to-wear in the United States," said Jean Druesedow, director of the Kent State University Museum, which was given 700 items from Hepburn's estate. Kent State was selected because it's one of the country's only museums of performance clothes.
"That image said to the American woman 'Look you don't have to be in your girdle and stockings and tight dress. You can be comfortable. That was probably the first aspect of becoming a fashion icon," said Druesedow, a co-curator of the exhibition.
The strong-willed actress known for taking charge of her career worked closely with all her designers to decide her performing wardrobe.
"They understood what would help her characters, what she would feel comfortable wearing ... how it would support the story," Druesedow said.
Margaret Furse, an English designer who created Hepburn's wardrobes for "The Lion in Winter," ''A Delicate Balance" and "Love Among the Ruins," went shopping with the star and talked extensively about what kinds of things would set the scene.
Among the highlights is a stunning satin and lace wedding gown created by Howard Greer for her role as Stella Surrege in "The Lake." The 1933 production was her first major Broadway role and also a huge flop. Writer and wit Dorothy Parker described her performance as running "the gamut of emotion from A to B." The experience taught Hepburn to have a bigger say in what roles she accepted, said Barbara Cohen-Stratyner, curator of exhibitions at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.
When she really liked a costume she had copies made for herself, sometimes in a different color or fabric. A silk dress and coat by Norman Hartnell from "Suddenly, Last Summer" and a green raw silk jumpsuit by Valentina from "The Philadelphia Story" were among the pieces she had copied.
Comfort was paramount to Hepburn — being able to throw her leg over a chair or sit on the floor. She always wore her 'uniform' — khakis and a shirt — to rehearsals and pant ensembles to publicity appearances.
A companion book, "Katharine Hepburn: Rebel Chic," describes how RKO executives hid Hepburn's trousers in an effort to persuade her to abandon them.
"Her response was to threaten to walk around the lot naked. Though she only stripped down as far as her silk underwear before stepping out of her dressing room, she made her point — and she got her trousers back," fashion writer Nancy MacDonell wrote in an essay for the book.
But comfort didn't mean sacrificing style — and she certainly knew how to be glamorous especially when a role called for it.
In her private life, she shopped at the major cutting-edge New York couturiers and worked with the best costume shops of the period, including Muriel King and Valentina, said Cohen-Stratyner.
"She really appreciated good fabric and good construction," she said. "Even her trousers are couture."
The exhibition is supplemented by film clips, movie posters, and archival photographs of Hepburn wearing the very costumes worn by the mannequins. Her false eyelashes, makeup trays and sensible shoes are also on display.

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Cancer Strikes 4 Times Before Bride Gets Wedding Dress

Lori Allen, who runs a successful bridal shop featured in the reality show Bridals By Lori, got a 7:05 a.m. telephone call in April that changed her life -- she had breast cancer.
"I was not even going to go get a mammogram this year," said the 53-year-old from Georgia. "I am healthy as a horse and haven't missed a day of work in five years. I had no lump. I was just busy running a business."
Her business is Bridals By Lori, and since the cancer diagnosis, surgery and recovery, she has used it as a platform to inspire and help other women with the disease.
One of those women, DeLese Range, has battled cancer in 23 of her 25-year marriage. She and husband Lonzie, who live in Carollton, Texas, will renew their vows next June in a dress provided by Allen.
"When I first got married, I borrowed my brother's girlfriend's dress and wore it at 2 o'clock -- she wore it that night to the prom," said Range, 43, who's survived ovarian and breast cancer survivor and is now being treated for lung and lymph node cancers.
Allen's journey with breast cancer, "Say Yes to the Cure: Lori's Fight," premieres tonight at 10 p.m. on TLC. The special, which features Range, airs as part of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
An estimated one in eight women will develop breast cancer during her lifetime, according to the American Cancer Society. It is the most common cancer among American women, except for skin cancers. About 39,510 women will die from the breast cancer this year.
"It turned my world upside down," Allen told ABCNews.com. She was so terrified by her breast cancer diagnosis, "I couldn't say the word for five days."
But she approached TLC, which produces her show, and offered to tell her personal story. Three days after the doctor's call, TV crews began filming.
Allen was looking for a woman who had survived breast cancer to help her make wedding dreams come true. She found Range through the Susan G. Komen For the Cure Foundation, and the special follows Range's search for the perfect dress.
In 1989, just two years after her makeshift wedding and pregnant with her second child, Range was diagnosed with ovarian cancer.
She recovered after chemotherapy and radiation, but in 2001, Range found out she had stage-four breast cancer.
"We had a nurse seven days a week and had to put a hospital bed in the bedroom next to my husband," she said.
After aggressive treatment, Range was prepped for a mastectomy. "We were in the hospital and the doctor came in and sat us down. He said, 'I don't think we have to do it now.'"
X-rays revealed that she had gone into a complete remission without treatment. Medical experts were baffled, but Range was overjoyed. "They can't explain it," she said.
But a decade later, in 2011, Range would face yet another cancer diagnosis. This time it was lung cancer, even though she had never smoked. And then, another blow -- doctors found unrelated cancer in her lymph nodes and she is now back on chemotherapy.
Bridals By Lori Gives Dress to Cancer Survivor
Range and Lonzie had hoped to renew their marriage vows this year, marking their 25th anniversary with their children at their side, but cancer stood in the way.
"When the chemo came up, we couldn't do it financially," she said. "It was going to have to wait."
But when Bridal's By Lori sought a breast cancer survivor for its TLC special, Range's husband, 45, who is a minister and also works for the U.S. Postal Service, responded. He wrote a letter to the Komen foundation explaining their story.
Allen had been there herself. "My whole family rallied around me," she said. "They were just as shocked as I was over the diagnosis."
Allen underwent a double mastectomy, but was spared further treatment.
"Doctors don't grab you by the hand and say, 'Do this' -- I had to figure it out my own path," said Allen, whose prognosis is now bright.
Helping others has "given me new meaning in my life," she said. "I have taken something that was really negative and turned it into a positive."
As for Range, she has continued to be active with the Komen foundation and has recently endured three straight weeks of chemotherapy -- so she can take time off from treatment to participate in its upcoming 60-mile, three-day walk for breast cancer awareness.
She hopes to get back to her work as a personal trainer soon.
But as the mother of two adult children and three grandchildren, Range is determined to be there for her family and is hopeful about her future.
"I am good, I am actually doing O.K.," she said. "I have my support system and it helps."
They only have one big worry now -- who will officiate their vows ceremony, scheduled for June 2013?
"My husband is a minister," she said. And so are her brother, father and father-in-law.
"I am going to have a problem picking," said Range. "I was estranged from my dad until 2001 and found him again. It's between my father and my father-in-law. I don't know.

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