NEW YORK — In a grand unveiling that had fans buzzing, Heidi Klum appeared at her annual Halloween event in 2025 dressed as Medusa. Her transformation was complete with animated snakes coiling from her head and an elongated serpent tail.

The 52-year-old supermodel kept her followers intrigued throughout the day by sharing glimpses of her costume preparation. These sneak peeks included eerie fangs, vibrant green alien contact lenses, and skin that appeared wrinkled and scaly.

Over the past two decades, Klum has elevated Halloween from a mere holiday to a celebrated art form.

Klum’s ascent to Halloween icon status had humble beginnings. At her inaugural party in 2000, she sported a leather dominatrix ensemble—a choice she now describes as “boring” in light of her subsequent, more elaborate creations.

“I had to do my own hair and makeup,” Klum told Jimmy Fallon in August. “I didn’t know anyone at the time who does special effects makeup.”

By 2001, she was riding into her second annual party on a real horse as Lady Godiva.

The annual Halloween bash has since become one of New York City’s most anticipated events, drawing celebrities and media attention as everyone waits to see what impossible transformation Klum has achieved.

Last year, Klum and husband Tom Kaulitz arrived as matching versions of E.T., with Klum portraying a female interpretation of the beloved alien. The costume required a year of planning and the work of about 30 special effects artists. The elaborate prosthetics hid her face in the neck of the costume.

“It was so heavy holding that head on my head because it goes from the back to the front,” Klum told Fallon. “I thought my neck was going to snap off.”

The year before, she turned heads as a living peacock, with nine Cirque du Soleil acrobats forming her tail feathers while Kaulitz arrived as a giant egg. 

But Klum’s 2022 transformation into a giant earthworm remains one of her most talked-about costumes. The hyper-realistic invertebrate took two years to create and 10 hours to put on. Her entire body was covered except for her eyes, mouth and the sneakers peeking out from the bottom.

Kaulitz completed the concept as a fisherman with a bloody eye, his hook attached to his wife’s costume. 

Klum said she begins planning her next costume on Nov. 1, the day after each party.

“I usually have two or three ideas that I’m playing with and then I decide on one thing,” she told The Hollywood Reporter. “You have to decide at one point because pieces have to be built and all of that.”

She works with prosthetic makeup designers, costume creators and special effects teams to bring her visions to life. For costumes requiring heavy prosthetics, she limits her food and liquid intake three hours before the party.

“I embrace that title,” she said of being called the Queen of Halloween. “And I always want to live up to it, year after year.”