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Supermodel and reality TV star Heidi Klum wins the trophy for the most-talked-about celebrity costume of 2022 with the hyperrealistic “rain worm” ensemble she wore to her 21st annual Halloween bash, held on Oct. 31 in New York City.
The outfit — a ringed sarcophagus from which only Klum’s eyes and mouth could be seen — looked like what might happen if the Michelin Man mated with a Slim Jim. It instantly set social media on fire, drawing amusement, confusion and revulsion in equal measure. To some, it was hailed as a performance art masterpiece; others saw it and demanded it instantly be killed with fire.
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Whichever way one felt about it, however, the worm proved impossible to turn away from.
From whence could such a monstrosity have emanated? To get those answers, The Hollywood Reporter went directly to the source: Klum herself and Mike Marino, owner of Prosthetic Renaissance, the special effects company that produced that Halloween look for her and many others, including Jessica Rabbit (2015), an old woman with varicose veins (2013) and the “Thriller” werewolf (2017).
The idea first occurred to Klum many months ago, as she started thinking ahead to her Halloween bash. The party had been canceled the two years prior due to the COVID-19 pandemic, so Klum knew she had to return with something truly show-stopping. “I just wanted to be something different and unexpected,” Klum says.
She described her vision of transforming into a tubular invertebrate, attached to a fishing line held by her husband, the musician Tom Kaulitz, who would dress as a fisherman. Marino’s first reaction was that the idea was not viable — for a film, sure, but not for a party.
“I didn’t think it was possible,” he says. “This costume idea was so big and it had to happen in [real time and in] real life, no cuts for take two. I wasn’t confident about pulling it off.”
But Klum, 49, was confident in his abilities and would not take no for answer. Marino hit the drafting table and sketched out a human-sized worm with the help of his collaborator, Paul Komoda. Another artist, Jerry Constantine, used a scan of Klum’s body and crafted a three-dimensional worm model that could wrap around her.
Bill Bryan, a veteran puppet and creature suit maker, then created a worm prototype using foam fabrication.
“Bill glued foam parts together to create the shape and then lined it with spandex and plastic tubes,” says Marino. “Then once we got the shape to a point where I liked it, we fabricated with foam latex to create the skin with detail.”
A second, more detailed 3D scan of Klum’s face was taken and used to create the eyes-and-mouth section, which was eventually cast in silicone. “Once the suit was built, we zipped Heidi in and hid the zipper, then I glued on the facial appliances and painted,” he says.
The whole process took four months of refining and development. Then, the morning of Halloween, the final application began. “We started at 11 a.m. and I probably made it to the carpet around 11 p.m.,” says Klum. Marino was concerned about how Klum would fare inside the restrictive worm suit.
“A suit like that can be claustrophobic because you have no access to your hands and your feet are very limited,” he says. “But Heidi actually wanted that because she wanted to feel more ‘worm-like.'”
In the end, Marino was right. “I was so claustrophobic in that costume,” Klum says. “It is one thing to add prosthetics to your body — but to be stuck inside the worm body and not really be able to use my arms or feet was not very comfortable. But Halloween is not about comfort.”
Nor is Halloween about basic human functioning, as Klum had no option for relieving herself while encased inside her squirmy guise. “I made sure not to drink anything hours before getting into costume as I knew that there was no way to get in and out of it,” she says.
After lying prone on the red carpet and taking earnest questions from an Entertainment Tonight reporter — an image that went viral and proved fertile caption fodder — Klum hopped inside and “was worming around and bouncing to the beats of Questlove,” she says.
She did eventually remove the costume to reveal a sparkly, skin-tight body suit, but her worm face makeup remained.
As for the worm, minus the parts that were single-use prosthetics, it now joins the rest of Klum’s past Halloween costumes in her home. And what must one spend to look like a worm? Marino will only offer, “It costs a lot more than anyone would think.”
Whatever the price, Klum feels it was worth it.
“For me, Halloween is all about transforming and being creative,” she says. “I am happy that people are appreciating the creativity and effort to create this as well as all the other costumes I did in the past. I couldn’t have done it without my team.”
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