All of Heidi Klum's iconic Halloween costumes, ranked
Heidi Klum has thrown a Halloween party nearly every year since 2000.
She goes all out for her costumes, which include prosthetics, props, and intense makeup.
We ranked her 24 costumes based on creativity, execution, and overall aesthetics.
Supermodel Heidi Klum has often been called the "queen of Halloween."
Since 2000, she has thrown an annual Halloween party, excluding 2012 and 2020, and is known for going all out with over-the-top costumes. In recent years, the costumes have used extensive prosthetics and taken months to create. In fact, this year's ET costume took a full 12 months to create and 30 FX artists, Vogue reported. It took seven hours for her to undergo her full transformation.
But not all of her costumes have been this labor-intensive. Klum has sometimes opted for a simpler costume that someone without access to thousands of dollars and a team of artists could attain.
Here's every Halloween costume the model has ever worn, ranked — in our opinion — from worst to best. Klum did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Klum's 2012 party was canceled due to Hurricane Sandy, but she gave fans a look at what her costume would've been: a gilded Cleopatra.
Dressing up as Cleopatra, though it's extremely common, also falls into some morally gray territory. Besides that, it's not a particularly interesting costume, apart from the giant headpiece, so perhaps it's for the best she canceled the party.
Klum's 2007 cat costume would be at home on the nightmarish set of "Cats."
In our opinion, Klum resembles a rat more than a cat. Plus, a cat is one of the most obvious Halloween costumes, and we expect more from a Halloween queen like Klum.
In 2009, Klum and her then-husband Seal dressed up as crows.
There's nothing particularly notable about this couple's costume, which is why it earns this low spot. We also don't really know why Seal is wearing a sunflower lapel pin or yellow gloves.
In 2016, she enlisted a group of models to all dress up as Klum herself.
If she had made everyone wear a more interesting costume, this would've been higher, but as it stands, the bodysuit and thigh-high boots aren't bold enough to deserve a better spot.
For her first-ever Halloween party in 2000, Klum wore a leather dress and black wig to dress up as a dominatrix.
This costume is simple but effective. The black wig and red lip are a big enough departure from Klum's ultra-recognizable look that even if she hadn't worn the leather ensemble, she still would've been incognito.
In 2003, Klum dressed up as a golden goddess alien creature.
Yes, she really leveled up in the commitment to her costumes in 2003, but we're not quite sure what she's supposed to be. She wore a golden catsuit, had long golden braids, metallic golden boots, and a gold grill.
The following year, she was a red-hot skeleton witch.
Again, we're not totally sure what Klum is supposed to be, but the giant red wig is iconic.
In 2005, Klum rocked a vampire costume with gothic butterfly wings.
Once again, Klum wore a giant wig. She paired her dress with thigh-high boots, vampire fangs, and wings.
Her 2002 take on Betty Boop was flawless.
Klum mainly relies on full-body prosthetics now, but her 2002 Betty Boop costume proves that with the right wig, make-up, and red dress (and a potential butt prosthetic), you can still completely transform yourself.
In 2001, for her second-ever party, Klum rode into her soiree atop a horse while dressed as a dead Lady Godiva.
At just her second Halloween party, Klum was showing us that her title of Halloween queen was not to be questioned. She turned heads when she rode into her party as the legend Lady Godiva.
Ten years later, she wore this unsettling human-body costume.
Klum looked like she stepped right out of "Bodies: The Exhibition" for her 2011 party. It looks like it took hours in the makeup chair to paint her entire head red.
Her 2014 costume was a giant patterned butterfly with an anatomically correct mask.
A butterfly is also a basic costume, but unlike when she dressed up as a cat, Klum took it to a whole new level with these gigantic wings and the mask with butterfly eyes.
What was Klum in 2019? We couldn't tell you, but it certainly sticks in your head.
There's so much happening here, we don't know where to start. The cut-open stomach with guts spilling out? The wires coming out of her nipples? The exposed brain?
This no doubt took time, planning, and the effort of very talented artists, but since we can't quite tell what she is, the 2019 costume lands in the middle of the pack.
Klum was pregnant in 2006 and found an inventive way to incorporate her belly by dressing up as the forbidden fruit, while Seal was Eve.
Most people would just dress as Adam and Eve, but Seal and Klum aren't most people. Dressing up as both a giant apple and the temptress serpent is a creative spin, and then, of course, Seal being Eve makes sense, as it's she who gets tempted.
The color-blocked tights and two separate boots (one green snakeskin, one red leather) are a nice touch.
It's a pity that Klum was just a few years early for M. Night Shyamalan's "Old" with her 2013 costume.
The prosthetic work here is truly impressive and looks real, from the wrinkly neck to the veiny legs. It might not be the most glamorous or sexy costume, but she really took an easy costume to a whole new level.
Klum rolled up to the red carpet on stilts and doused in purple paint in 2010.
This costume is a mix between a giant robot and a superhero. Her entire body was covered in bright purple face paint, and she even learned to walk on stilts to attend the party.
This costume was her second look of 2011. She and Seal were the most realistic-looking chimps we've ever seen.
These two wouldn't have been out of place on the set of "Planet of the Apes" in these Hollywood-grade prosthetics and costumes.
While animals may be low-hanging fruit in terms of Halloween costumes, monkeys are frequently done, but rarely this well. We commend Klum, Seal, and their team of artists who put this look together.
She totally disappeared into this scarily accurate Jessica Rabbit costume in 2015.
In what's basically her Betty Boop costume leveled-up, Klum looked exactly like the animated character from "Who Framed Roger Rabbit," voiced by Kathleen Turner. The costume should just be retired now — no one can top this.
In 2018, she and her husband, Tom Kaulitz, dressed as Shrek and Fiona. Kaulitz's Shrek is unnerving, but Klum's Fiona is perfect.
You can see how time-consuming this process was on her Instagram — basically, every feature is prosthetic, from nose to feet.
Our third-favorite Klum costume has to be her look from 2017 when Klum fully became a werewolf from Michael Jackson's "Thriller" music video.
Klum nailed every detail of this costume, from the cropped pants and white socks to the letterman jacket and werewolf mask.
In 2023, Klum arrived dressed as a peacock with a full entourage, while Kaulitz dressed as an egg.
Klum's peacock costume took more than 1,963 hours to create. It consisted of a blue velvet bodysuit that covered her entirely, plus a feather-covered mask with a realistic-looking beak. When she entered the party, she changed into another peacock bodysuit with sheer cutouts and large feather wings.
Klum partnered with Cirque du Soleil and makeup artist Bill Corso to create the look, and she was accompanied by an entourage of 10 Cirque du Soleil acrobats who created the illusion of the model's wings on the orange carpet.
Her husband, Tom Kaulitz, also joined the group costume by dressing as a giant peacock egg.
Until this year, nothing could top when Heidi Klum dressed as a worm in 2022, but this costume was dethroned in 2024.
Kaulitz accompanied the model in a fisherman's costume, complete with a pole and line attached to his wife. A video of Klum on the red carpet showed her inching herself along before she stretched out on the ground for an interview with Entertainment Tonight.
Klum said that the costume took a few months to build and required multiple fittings.
Klum's 2024 costume is her best yet. She dressed as ET, complete with an animatronic head that blinked and opened its mouth.
What can we say? This is Klum's best costume — you can barely even see her unless you take a close look at its neck.
Both Klum and her husband dressed as ET from "ET the Extra-Terrestrial," the 1982 classic directed by Steven Spielberg. Kaulitz, on the left, is a more classic ET, while Klum's costume pays homage to a scene in the film where Gertie (played by an adorable Drew Barrymore) helps ET dress up.
Klum spoke with The New York Times about what it was like to wear this costume. The head weighed 5 pounds, and it was so difficult to get in and out of the costume that she chose to wear an adult diaper.
The animatronic was remote controlled by someone on her team.
Her longtime collaborator, Mike Marino, called the costume "the most complicated" one they've ever created. "Her whole face and body are glued on. And it takes, really, months to build and design," he said.
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