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We've gotta hand it to Heidi Klum and maybe even give her a round of applause, because she certainly had us wrapped around her finger teasing out her 2026 Halloween costume! Her Instagram followers had a lot of ideas about what the model might choose for her hotly anticipated costume, including the substance from The Substance, but she surprised pretty much everyone with the final reveal: a gory, bloody, extremely lifelike severed hand, complete with exposed bone shards at the wrist.
Yes, a giant hand, crafted to resemble her own down to her veins and her engagement and wedding rings, plus a vampy berry manicure! Klum's face was almost hidden amidst the flesh, but it peeked out near the severed wrist, covered in prosthetics and makeup meant to resemble tissue and blood.
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According to prosthetics designer Mike Marino, who frequently works with Klum on her costumes, a lot goes into bringing these costumes to life. Klum and her team started thinking about this year's ensemble basically the minute Halloween 2025 ended. In the past, Klum has famously dressed as Medusa, a worm, the wig-wearing version of E.T., and a peacock, among many, many other beloved costumes—never the same thing twice! Plus. this was the 25th anniversary party, so the stakes were high (five). “Sometimes the most ordinary things can become the most extraordinary when you look at them a little differently,” Klum wrote on Instagram. “I wanted something unexpected, a little weird, a little creepy, and unlike anything I’d ever done before." This was definitely that! No one expected her to go as a hand.
The hand costume needed a combination of “harnesses, mechanics, motion, fluid motion—not fluid like liquid, but stuff that moves sort of organically,” Marino tells Allure. The hand was made of an “upholstery foam and latex” combo, and the costume also included harnesses, straps, and some silicone. “The harness distributed the 15 to 20 pounds that the hand weighed," explains Marino. "It distributed the weight around her so she didn't have to carry it on her head or anything. It was on her waist and shoulders and there was a small mechanical part she could control to move the fingers.” Marino describes the yearly costume process as “R&D experiments” with no instructions.
The team looked at medical reference materials and copied the tissue types that would be in said areas, like fat, muscles, and bones, Marino says. “Everything was then replicated using silicone, rubber and foam, keeping it all as lightweight as possible. For the blood, I didn't want it to be wet, I just wanted it to look wet,” he adds. The team made a rubber blood that stayed shiny; the only “real, wet blood” was what Klum had in her mouth.
To craft the gory but hilarious face, Marino first made sculptures. “The face was made in two layers: one was silicone that looked like fatty tissue and muscle and the outer layer consisted of wounds," he explains. "The layer on her face was not directly attached so she wasn't tethered to the whole suit. She could move freely inside."
The team tries to do as much pre-work as possible, including fittings and pre-painting, says Marino. This year, the actual “getting ready" started around 3 p.m. eastern time on Halloween, and Klum made her debut late that night. “Miraculously, it always comes together, but somehow it always takes forever, even if it's an easy thing,” Marino shares. In total, the hand required a group of more than 35 artists, Marino shares.
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Klum didn't wear the full costume all night; she eventually ditched the enormous hand but kept the face makeup intact. And if we know Klum, she's already busy planning next year's costume.
