Heidi Klum attends the Halloween party in 2024 in an elaborate ET costume

Editor’s Note: Featuring the good, the bad and the ugly, ‘Look of the Week’ is a regular series dedicated to unpacking the most talked about outfit from the past seven days.

CNN
—

Heidi Klum phone home.

The most anticipated costume of the spooky season is here – and the “Queen of Halloween” did not disappoint.

Klum continues her tradition of wearing wildly elaborate outfits to her own star-studded annual party, and Klum arrived at this year’s party dressed as E.T.

The 51-year-old model made a dramatic entrance at New York’s Hard Rock Hotel, her face peeking out from the alien’s neck beneath an animatronic head that blinked and moved its mouth. With the costume’s feet at knee height, an elevated stage (and smoke machine) helped give the appearance of Klum walking around on ET’s characteristic stumpy legs.

The former Victoria’s Secret Angel completed the look with a big wig, dress and lipstick – a nod to when Drew Barrymore’s character Gertie dresses the alien in Steven Spielberg’s 1982 film ET The Extra-Terrestrial.

Klum’s husband, Tom Kaulitz, also joined the party as ET, his wigless costume completing a sort of his-and-hers (though Spielberg has long maintained that the character is neither male nor female).

Klum spoke to the New York Times ahead of the event said her glowing fingertips and motorized headpiece, which weighed about five pounds, were remotely controlled by a member of her team. She also revealed plans to wear an adult nappy due to the difficulty of removing the costume during the party, saying: “I might never have to use (it), but at least that way I don’t have to think about it”.

Klum had kept fans guessing until the last minute, sharing close-ups of the costume on social media and live-streaming her preparations (albeit with her outfit hidden) via Amazon Live earlier Thursday.

The model was joined at the pre-party program by longtime collaborator Mike Marino, the Hollywood prosthetics designer behind several of her most complex Halloween costumes. Marino called this year’s design “probably the most complicated we’ve ever done.”

“Her whole face and body is glued on,” he said. “And it actually takes months to build and design.”

Klum said that Marino had initially considered the costume too complex. “When I asked Mike if he could make this costume for me, his first answer was ‘no,'” she said on Amazon Live, recalling that she “begged and begged” him to change his mind.

The German model held the first of her annual events on October 31 in 2000, seven years after she moved to the US and “fell in love” with Halloween. “All that was missing was a great party,” she told The Hollywood Reporter in 2018.

The party has since become one of Halloween’s most talked-about parties, thanks in part to Klum’s imaginative costumes. Recent years have seen her arrive as a robot, a peacock, a werewolf, Princess Fiona from “Shrek” and, perhaps most famously, a giant earthworm in 2022.

At this year’s event, The Roots’ drummer Questlove came as a mad hatter, model Haley Kalil dressed as Tim Burton’s “Corpse Bride” and “The Real Housewives of New York” star Bethenny Frankel arrived as Wonder Woman.

Influencer Zach Justice, dressed as KFC’s Colonel Sanders, meanwhile, arrived with an oversized egg, which he pulled open to reveal “America’s Got Talent” contortionist Sofie Dossi, who was folded inside a chicken costume.

Klum’s costume may have won the award for most elaborate, but she wasn’t the year’s only celebrity extraterrestrial. By apparent coincidence, Janelle Monae posted her own ET costume on social media a day earlier. The actor and musician collaborated with special effects artists to produce the outfit, which also featured a glowing fingertip, for an appearance on “The Jennifer Hudson Show.”