Every October, the fashion world holds its collective breath, waiting for a single woman to emerge from a cloud of prosthetics and performance art. Heidi Klum has not just mastered the art of the Halloween costume; she has reinvented it. What began in 2000 as a high-society costume party has evolved into a global cultural phenomenon, with the German supermodel spending upwards of a year—and hundreds of thousands of dollars—to disappear into roles ranging from a worm on a hook to a mythological beast. As we move through the 2025/26 season, Klum’s dedication to the “ugly, scary, and stinky” continues to prove that for the Queen of Halloween, glamour is secondary to the thrill of the transformation.
The 2025 Masterpiece: The Hissing Medusa
For the 25th anniversary of her legendary bash on October 31, 2025, Klum decided to “ditch the cute” and embrace the grotesque. She arrived at the Hard Rock Hotel in New York City as a terrifyingly realistic Medusa. The costume was a triumph of animatronic engineering, featuring a crown of squirming, motorized snakes that moved independently as she hissed at photographers. Her husband, Tom Kaulitz, completed the Greek mythology theme as a petrified soldier, his skin meticulously painted to look like cracked, weathered stone.
This transformation reportedly took over 10 hours of application. Klum utilized green prosthetic scales that covered her entire body, elongated fangs, and reptilian contact lenses to achieve a look she described as “truly ugly.” After the whimsy of her 2024 appearance, the 2025 Medusa served as a reminder that Klum is most at home when she is unrecognizable, leaning into the horror roots of the holiday with a level of detail that rivals Hollywood’s best special effects departments.
The E.T. Invasion: A Nostalgic 2024 Journey
Just a year prior, Klum tapped into pure 80s nostalgia by transforming into E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. This 2024 look was a heartfelt tribute to her childhood in Germany, where the Spielberg classic first sparked her imagination. The costume featured a glowing fingertip and a motorized headpiece with blinking eyes and a moving mouth, operated remotely by her team. To make the illusion perfect, the red carpet was elevated so that when she stood behind it, her knobby alien feet appeared to be at floor level.
The 2024 “E.T. era” was a family affair, with Tom Kaulitz also dressing as the iconic alien. This look was praised for its technical complexity, utilizing 3-D printing and digital body scans to create a seamless “second skin.” It stood in stark contrast to her 2022 “Worm” costume, which was famously low-tech and claustrophobic. By 2024, Klum had clearly mastered the balance between mechanical ingenuity and emotional storytelling.
The Evolution of the “Humanoid” Aesthetic
Looking back at the early 2020s, Klum’s costumes began to favor the “humanoid” and the biological. In 2023, she shocked the world as a Giant Peacock, which required an entourage of ten acrobats from Cirque du Soleil to serve as her tail feathers. This “ensemble costume” was a masterclass in coordination, where the performers’ bodies merged to create a single, iridescent creature.
| Year | Costume | Key Detail |
| 2023 | Giant Peacock | Involved 10 acrobats to form the tail feathers. |
| 2022 | Rain Worm | Spent the night on the floor; husband was a fisherman. |
| 2021 | Zombies | A short film “Until Death Do Us Part” starring her kids. |
| 2019 | Alien/Frankenstein | A 12-hour live window transformation in NYC. |
| 2018 | Princess Fiona | Arrived in a horse-drawn carriage with “Shrek” (Tom). |
This era saw Klum moving away from “sexy” tropes and toward “structural” art. Her 2022 Worm remains perhaps her most viral moment, where she appeared as a giant, ridged invertebrate attached to a fishing hook. These costumes emphasized the physical toll of the holiday, with Klum often admitting she has to limit her food and water intake for hours to survive the restrictive prosthetics.
The Golden Era: From Jessica Rabbit to 95-Year-Old Heidi
The mid-2010s are often considered Klum’s “Golden Era,” where she combined high glamour with extreme prosthetic work. In 2015, she achieved what many thought impossible by transforming into a hyper-realistic Jessica Rabbit, complete with a prosthetic chest and a total facial reconstruction. Two years earlier, in 2013, she performed a different kind of magic, appearing as 95-year-old Heidi, with hand-painted age spots and varicose veins that fooled even her closest friends.
These years solidified her title as the “Queen of Halloween.” She proved she could be the most beautiful woman in the world and the most haggard, often in the span of twelve months. This versatility is what has kept her party at the top of the social calendar for twenty-five years. Whether she was a multi-armed Hindu Goddess (2008) or a skinless Human Body (2011), she used each year to push the boundaries of what a costume could be.
The Legacy of “Heidiween”: 2026 and Beyond
As we look toward the 2026 season, Klum shows no signs of slowing down. She has famously stated that she begins planning her next costume on November 1st, the very morning after her party. Her process involves a dedicated team of over 30 special effects artists, designers, and engineers who work year-round to bring her “nightmare fuel” to life.
In the world of 2026, “Heidiween” is more than a party; it is a brand that celebrates the joy of being someone else. By showing the “ugly” side of herself, Klum has encouraged a generation of celebrities and fans to take risks and prioritize creativity over vanity. As she approaches three decades of Halloween dominance, the question is no longer “Will she top last year?” but rather “How will she redefine reality next?”
