Heidi Klum's 2026 Halloween costume was a giant severed hand

Heidi Klum turned her own left hand into her Halloween costume this year, arriving at her 25th annual Halloween party in New York on Saturday, October 31, inside a giant, bloodied severed hand. The prosthetic reproduced her veins, her rings and a small tattoo on her finger, and it left only her eyes and mouth visible near the wound at the wrist.

The reveal capped a week of teasing on Instagram and marked the 25th anniversary of Klum's Halloween party. She built the look with her longtime special-effects collaborator, Mike Marino, and his studio, ProRenFX.

What was Heidi Klum's 2026 costume?

Klum's legs became two of the fingers, finished with red-painted nails, Haute Living reported, while gold rings added a touch of glamour to the gore. ABC News described long red nails and dangling tendons and ligaments. Allure noted exposed bone shards at the wrist and a berry manicure. Klum's face peeked out beside the gash, covered in prosthetics and makeup meant to look like tissue and blood.

Helpers in yellow hazmat suits and face masks escorted her down the red carpet, Haute Living reported. The effect was part crime scene, part fashion show.

"My inspiration was my hand," Klum, 53, told Good Morning America on the red carpet, according to Us Weekly. "It is actually my hand, like, even the veins and everything."

Why a hand?

Klum told Vogue that she wanted to take something ordinary and make it strange. "I love the idea of taking something so common, and that we see every single day, something we probably never even think twice about, and turning it into something larger than life," she said. "I thought it would be funny and bizarre to take something so familiar and twist it."

She wrote on Instagram, as quoted by Allure, that she "wanted something unexpected, a little weird, a little creepy, and unlike anything I'd ever done before."

The idea came early. Klum told Vogue she started thinking about the hand about a year ago, before her 2025 party. When she first pitched it, Marino told her he needed to focus on that year's Medusa costume first. "But it stayed in the back of my mind, and I knew I wanted to bring it to life this year," she said.

Fans had guessed widely in the days before the party. Klum posted a teaser on Instagram a week out that asked, "What's my costume?" Allure reported that some followers predicted a look inspired by the film "The Substance."

How was the costume made?

Marino already had scans of Klum's body from past projects, and his team used them to build an exact replica of her hand. "We wanted everything to be as realistic as possible — the anatomy, the veins, the muscles, all the little details that make a hand look like a real hand," Klum told Vogue.

The bigger challenge was making a giant hand that a person could wear and move in. "There is so much planning, sculpting, molding and engineering that goes into these costumes," Klum said. "The hand had to be large enough to make the impact I wanted, but also constructed in a way that I could actually wear it and move around."

Marino told Allure the build needed "harnesses, mechanics, motion, fluid motion — not fluid like liquid, but stuff that moves sort of organically." Klum worked mechanisms from inside to make the hand move. He used "super lightweight upholstery foam and latex" to keep the weight down and called each year's costume a set of "R&D experiments" with no instructions.

For the face, Marino made sculptures first. "I created two layers, one showing the muscle, organs, and fat, and another with a goofy expression that I thought would work well with the giant hand and give the whole thing a slightly comedic edge," he wrote on Instagram, according to Allure. "Like a mutant muppet."

The team does as much as it can in advance, including fittings and pre-painting. "Miraculously, it always comes together, but somehow it always takes forever, even if it's an easy thing," Marino said. Klum joked to reporters that a 3 p.m. start meant "today wasn't so bad."

What personal details were included?

The costume carried Klum's own jewelry. "We even recreated my engagement ring and wedding band, as well as the little tattoo on my finger," she told Vogue. "Nothing was overlooked! I love that Mike pays attention to things that most people might not even notice at first. The details make these costumes so special. It's not just any giant hand: It's my giant hand!"

Haute Living reported that the replica ring is the wedding ring from her husband, Tom Kaulitz. Klum posed at the party with her son Henry Samuel, Us Weekly reported, and Haute Living's photos showed her with her daughter Leni Klum.

Who was at the party?

Haute Living reported that guests included Questlove, Neil Patrick Harris, David Burtka, Andrew Rannells, Madelaine Petsch, Tramell Tillman, Paris Jackson, Taylor Momsen, Madison Bailey, Lux Pascal and Offset. Ice-T and Coco, Eric McCormack, Carolyn Murphy, Karen Mulder and Valentina Sampaio also attended.

The party was held at Cathédrale, the French-inspired restaurant at Moxy East Village run by Tao Group Hospitality, which Haute Living said has been part of Klum's Halloween parties for more than two decades. ABC's archive gallery shows Klum also held her 2019 party at Cathédrale.

Sponsors included Apothic, which served limited-edition "blood bag" drinks; Butterfinger, a title sponsor for the third year in a row; and Dos Equis, the official beer.

Klum did not wear the full hand all night. After the red carpet she took off the giant hand and kept the face makeup, partying in a skin-tight, bloodied outfit, Us Weekly and Allure reported.

How does it compare with past years?

Klum's costumes have become a fixture of Halloween coverage. ABC News lists her 2025 Medusa and 2024 E.T. among recent looks, and Vogue and Allure point to a peacock, a worm and Princess Fiona from "Shrek" among earlier ones. She has never repeated a costume, Allure noted.

The hand fits a familiar pattern: Klum hides her famous face behind a much larger character. "Every year, I want to surprise people and do something that they haven't seen me — or anyone — do before," she told Vogue. "Halloween is my favorite time of year because I get to completely transform myself and become something totally different."

She also described what she wants guests to feel. "I always want the party to feel like a place where everyone can be creative and really become someone or something else for the night," she said. "My favorite part is that nobody holds back!"

Other celebrities took different approaches this season. Lily Allen went with a Ticketmaster blue-dot costume, the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders dressed as My Chemical Romance, and "Dancing with the Stars" held its Halloween night.

Timeline

• **About a year ago:** Klum pitches the hand idea to Marino, who asks to finish the 2025 Medusa costume first.
• **One week before Halloween:** Klum teases her costume on Instagram.
• **Oct. 31, about 3 p.m. ET:** The getting-ready process begins.
• **Oct. 31, late night:** Klum arrives at Cathédrale as a giant severed hand, escorted by helpers in hazmat suits.
• **Nov. 1:** Vogue, Allure and Us Weekly publish interviews detailing how the costume was built.

What's next

Klum has not said what she will wear in 2027, but the planning has already started. "November 1 is also when I start thinking about next year," she told Vogue. "I'm always collecting ideas, so even when Halloween is over, my brain is already working on what I could possibly become next."

For more on the weekend, read NewsCubby's guide to Halloween week and the end of daylight saving time.

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*ARCHIVE PHOTO: Heidi Klum in March 2019. Photo: Glenn Francis / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0.*

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