Heidi Klum Spent 2 Years Crafting Her Halloween Costume

Photo: Saul Appelbaum

Halloween isn’t over until Heidi Klum—the reigning queen of the holiday—has revealed her costume. In the past, the German American supermodel has transformed herself into Jessica Rabbit, Shrek’s Fiona, and an elderly version of herself. There’s simply no concept that’s too theatrical or outlandish for her to pull off for her annual party. This year, she surprised and delighted her fans by becoming a worm.

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Although Klum hasn’t been able to host her usual star-studded Halloween bashes for the past two years due to COVID, she finally got to throw a soirée last night in New York at Sake No Hana, a new Japanese restaurant located at the Moxy NYC Lower East Side hotel. Fully encased in her costume, she wriggled onto the red carpet and even gave an interview while lying down on the floor (photos have already gone viral on social media). “I was so excited that I got to throw a party again,” Klum says. “I wanted this year’s party to be better than ever—and that means my costume needed to be more magical than in the year’s past.”

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Klum said it took her two years of brainstorming to come up with the worm concept. “I like to do something unexpected, so I tried to think of a costume that is super absurd, but also very familiar,” Klum says. “Because it is Halloween, you need the creepy factor, also a bit gross and disgusting.” She, of course, needed a team of talented special effects people to make her creepy-crawly vision come to life, so she worked with makeup artist Mike Marino and his team at Prosthetic Renaissance. They’re her go-to Halloween glam team. “No matter how crazy my ideas are, Mike brings them to life,” Klum says. “I wanted to be Jessica Rabbit, and he said, ‘No problem.’ I wanted to be the werewolf from the ‘Thriller’ video, and he said, ‘No problem.’ Clone me five times? ‘No problem.’”

The model admits that when she first called Marino with the concept of becoming a worm, he was hesitant about the logistics. “I called him and said, ‘Make me a worm,’ and he said, ‘Huh?!?!?!’ He initially did not want to do it and kept encouraging me to think of a new idea,” Klum says. “However, I am not like that: When I fall in love with an idea, I do not want to pivot.” How exactly did the team do it? Klum slipped into a fully-cocooned prosthetic shell (where her arms were fully constricted), and then they applied special effects facepiece to make Klum’s face seamlessly blend into the folds of her costume, so only her eyes and mouth stood out.

Compared to some of her equally outlandish costumes of years past, Klum says this year’s worm moment was especially special. “This year, there was nothing human about this at all, so I was really transformed,” she says. “I loved that this was a random species in nature that is being scaled up and brought to life.”

She even found the beauty in worms during the design process. “I love the color of a worm, as there are so many subtle colors of pinks and browns within its body,” Klum says. “And the way their segmented anatomy allows them to move so seamlessly: They seem so simple to the eye, but there is so much going on.”