Does Heidi Klum Own Halloween?

She owns the SEO, that much is for certain.

Sure, we’d had news-generating outfits before — Marilyn Monroe’s pink satin gown, Cher’s sequined Bob Mackie, Elizabeth Hurley’s safety pin dress, Björk’s swan, Rose McGowan’s see-through number, just to name a few — but it was Rihanna who tethered the association between the star, the dress and the event when she stepped out in her show-stopping Guo Pei dress at the 2017 Met Gala, making what was once a relatively insider-y affair and using the kind of power only she can conjure to elevate the gala to global intrigue.

The Rihanna effect, seen in the subsequent years, meant that it was less about the clothing and more about the clothing as a vehicle for making a moment. Suddenly, black tie gala adornment was antiquated. To show up wasn’t enough; one was expected to show out.

Heidi Klum has tried to have a similar kind of implicit connection with Halloween since 2001 when she hosted her first ever Halloween celebration (dressed as Lady Godiva) at Lot 61 in New York City.

This was three years before the debut of Project Runway, the show that would become her raison d’etre, so to speak, and Klum was looking to expand beyond the confines of fashion. She did cameos as herself in Sex and the City and Zoolander and even began dabbling in acting. The Halloween party was another entity to stamp her name on. And so, she made it an annual affair. She was Betty Boop the next year. Then a golden alien. Then a red witch. Then a vampire. Then a serpent. Then a cat.

Then she discovered prosthetics. In 2013, she finally found her groove, stepping out as “little old me,” as she called it, which had Klum in full prosthetics, varicose veins and all, looking like Norman Bates’s mother.

The unconventionality, the artistry and the game-ness put her at the top of the “Best Celeb Halloween Costume” listicles. With people’s attention spans briefly grasped, she seized on this by making prosthetics her thing: Jessica Rabbit, Fiona from Shrek and perhaps most famously: the worm (whatever that was).

As such, it became less about “what will Heidi Klum be?” and more “what lengths will she go to this year?” In other words, it became more about the meticulous preparation and her commitment level than creative costuming.

Lucky for her, a combination of her star power, her commitment and great SEO led to an ecosystem of annual coverage dedicated to Klum and her party. “What will she wear?” speculative articles. “History of” articles. “Every Heidi Klum Halloween costume ranked” articles. In the lead-up and all throughout the holiday itself, people pored over articles that positioned Klum as Halloween’s it-girl. And though she’s great at generating attention, the costumes themselves have remained quite random.

Such was very much the case this year when Klum stepped out as some kind of demon version of Medusa complete with more than a dozen animatronic snakes slithering from her head and a nearly 8-foot tall snake suit which encased her body.

Did I mention the prosthetic teeth? The tongue? It was impressive, certainly. But it was less a feat in imagination so much as it was execution, something Klum had little to do with. For that, Klum once again turned to Mike Marino, a Hollywood prosthetics designer, who modeled the look after the stop-motion Medusa from the 1981 movie Clash of the Titans, designed by Ray Harryhausen, the esteemed animator and special-effects creator. Was it impressive seeing the snakes move all on their own? Certainly. But it might as well have been Marino himself in the costume.

It’s interesting to contrast the holiday queendom of Heidi Klum vs. Mariah Carey with Christmas. The latter has a title earned through creative output, whereas Klum really is more the vessel or the outlet for someone else’s creative expression — even if the idea might come from Klum herself. It’s not to diminish Klum’s success in taking a beloved holiday and staking some ownership over it in a way that has people largely convinced that creative costumery is her domain to best. It’s less a knock at Klum — get your coin, girl (and she surely did, milking sponsorships from the evening) — and more showcasing this as clever branding. In fact, Klum has, as of this writing, posted 19 separate posts about Halloween (including exhaustive preparation content).

Does Heidi Klum own Halloween? Sure. Much in the same way Aaron Tveit won Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical at the 74th Tony Awards in 2020 after being the only nominee in the category. She’s able to secure the title because she smartly established the brand years ago with no competition, kept it consistent and managed to create a perception of upping the stakes for herself each year. I’d argue that the costumes themselves would benefit from more focus on the content vs. the form, but that’s the beauty of being the queen of an annual affair: There’s always next year. And to her credit, no matter what stunts she pulls, we’ll be watching. Maybe with a side eye, sure, but she successfully managed to claim a stake in a holiday that many now see as being hers. And to that, I’ll evoke Lucille Bluth in offering: “Good for her.”