The Heidi Klum severed hand costume turned the supermodel into a giant, bloody copy of her own left hand at her 25th annual Halloween party Oct. 31 in New York City. Klum, 53, hosted the milestone bash at Cathédrale Restaurant at Moxy East Village, with only her eyes and mouth showing through the costume, People reported.
Klum’s entrance fit the gore. She pulled up in a truck marked with red “DANGER” signs, and actors in yellow hazmat suits got her down to the ground, according to The Hollywood Reporter. “TALK TO THE HAND,” she wrote on Instagram with her reveal video.
Inside the Heidi Klum Severed Hand Costume
The idea came from an ordinary look at her own hand. “I looked at my hand and I thought, ‘Hey, I think I could fit my body in this somehow,'” Klum told The Associated Press, Yahoo Entertainment reported. Her legs formed two of the fingers.
The hand copied long red nails, a thumb ring, and her engagement ring and wedding band, according to Yahoo. Us Weekly described blood-soaked tendons and bone jutting from the wound.
Klum’s longtime collaborator, makeup designer Mike Marino, used scans of her body to build it. Marino, who won an Emmy for his work on “The Penguin,” told People he wasn’t sold on the idea at first because of how difficult it would be. The costume took four months to make after a year of brainstorming, he said.
“This costume this year is one of the most elaborate costumes ever made,” Marino told NBC’s “Hollywood ReelTime” before the party, according to Gulf News. “It’s so difficult to do and just the complication of it is really challenging.”
Getting into it took about five to six hours, Klum told the AP. “Hands down, the hardest thing is carrying it,” she said. “It’s quite heavy.”
A Tribute to Tom Kaulitz
The costume also carried the most personal detail of the night. It reproduced the “Tom” tattoo on Klum’s finger, a tribute to husband Tom Kaulitz. “I got it on our wedding day,” she told E! News, which described her wedding ring as green stone.
Kaulitz, who has dressed alongside Klum in recent years, missed the party because he’s on tour with Tokio Hotel. The band played Paris on Oct. 30 and had a Nov. 1 show in Hamburg, Germany, leaving little time to fly to New York and back, Joyn reported.
“A little bit of Tom is with me,” Klum told the AP.
A Bloody Wine Tie-In
Klum had hinted at the gore back in September. “It goes very well with red wine,” she told People of the costume. “It’s very, very bloody.”
The red wine line wasn’t random. Klum partnered with Apothic Wine on limited-edition Apothic x Heidi Klum Type ‘A’ Blood Bags, Halloween collectibles styled to look like medical blood bags. They were sold empty in two-packs for $10.31, a nod to the Oct. 31 date, Dexerto reported.
Apothic and Butterfinger presented this year’s party. Butterfinger said it returned as title sponsor for a third straight year.
25 Parties, Plenty of Prosthetics
Klum hosted her first Halloween party in 2000 and skipped 2020 and 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, People reported. Over the years, she has turned up as Jessica Rabbit, Fiona from “Shrek,” a worm, a peacock, E.T. and Medusa.
The transformations can eat up a whole day. Klum said she spent 10 hours getting into her Medusa costume last year, and her 2019 alien look took more than 12.
She started teasing this year’s look on Instagram on Oct. 24, a week before the party, with a close-up of prosthetics. Asked by Entertainment Tonight how ugly the costume would be, Klum answered, “From a scale of one to 10, it’s gonna be 11,” Us Weekly reported.
What’s Next
If past years are any guide, Klum may already know what comes next. She has said she plans her costumes “far, far in advance,” often right after Halloween, Just Jared reported. Before last year’s party, she told USA Today she already knew what she would be in 2026.
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