On the night of Tuesday, Oct. 31, about 500 guests and celebrities gathered for Heidi Klum’s Halloween party at the nightclub Marquee in Manhattan, New York. The party was highly anticipated, the second after a two-year hiatus due to precautions from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Klum, who has been dubbed the “Queen of Halloween” by USA Today for her creative costumes, emerged at her 2022 Halloween party as a realistic worm larger than herself. The costume was elaborate, painted an accurate dark red and pink, complete with a tail that appeared to be frozen mid-wriggling and a head that pointed down at onlookers. Klum’s eyes and mouth could only be seen through barely-visible holes. She was accompanied by her husband, Tom Kaulitz, who was dressed in a fisherman’s costume, holding a pole and line that was attached to Klum.
While many considered the 2022 worm costume to be her most impressive, some of the other 23 costumes she has worn over the years also stand out, including dressing up as a much older version of herself in 2013. Other notable costumes include those done with Kaulitz, such as showing up as a pair of extremely realistic chimpanzees in 2011 and Shrek and Fiona — complete with green skin and ears — in 2018.
To top the previous year’s impressive worm costume, Klum decided to rely on several other people to become a peacock, together portraying the colorful tail and feathers of the bird. To make the costume as realistic as possible, Klum worked with the Cirque du Soleil design team to choose the type of fabric and prosthetic beak. The first step of the reveal was makeup, as Klum’s face was painted bright blue, with the peacock’s signature colorful eyes and iridescent head. The prosthetic beak was added next to hang near Klum’s mouth. In addition, Klum wore a shiny blue bodysuit, a look that made her stand out as the host of the party, according to first-year Vee Ioannidi.
“I feel like it’s a costume that screams, ‘I am Heidi Klum. This is my Halloween party,’” Ioannidi said. “I feel […] that she has evolved. Her costumes are getting more and more detailed, and the performances that come with them are also getting more extravagant.”
During the reveal of the costume, Cirque du Soleil members joined Klum to bring together the colorful large feathers. But this was not the only addition to Klum’s costume — Kaulitz arrived inside of an extremely large, white, textured egg. His face was visible through a large hole in the center, and his arms stuck out through holes in the sides. Klum shared her inspiration for her costume in an interview with People.
“I wanted to do a costume with many, many people. I wanted to have a bunch of people and we all become one thing. And for me, in my mind, that one thing was the peacock,” Klum said.
Guests at the party included singer-songwriter Camila Cabello dressed as Mia Thermopolis from “The Princess Diaries,” actress and singer Rachel Zegler dressed as Daphne from “Scooby-Doo,” singer-songwriter H.E.R. dressed as an astronaut and media personality Alix Earle dressed as the White Witch from “The Chronicles of Narnia.”
At the nightclub, decorated with spiderwebs and other Halloween decorations, guests danced and chatted about each others’ costumes.
For Visiting Instructor in Theater Fabian Aguilar, who specializes in costume design at Colgate, events like Klum’s Halloween party are seen as an opportunity for adults to wear costumes for fun — something not often provided in everyday life.
“I am always excited around Halloween to see the costumes,” Aguilar said. “I am thrilled to see celebrities take costuming to extremes, but also thrilled to see any adult participate in the joy of dress-up in any capacity.”
The creativity needed for Halloween costumes is similarly a chance for a break from the mundane.
“During the monotony of the everyday, the string of sorrows in the news or uncertainty in politics, events like Heidi Klum’s Halloween parties — or the Met Gala, for instance — encourage adults not to let go of joy altogether or the wonder in self-expression,” Aguilar said. “There is some safety in the anonymity of costumes that give people permission to act differently than they might otherwise, and I hope that part of the holiday never falls out of fashion.”
