Imagine how easy it would have been for Heidi Klum to wear a showgirl-looking gown to the Met Gala. Heidi is not a fashionista despite hosting Project Runway for 16 seasons. We’ve seen her in so many fug looks, and there were plenty of those at the Met Gala this year. Instead she showed up as a full on realistic statue, cementing (pun intented) her status as the queen of Halloween. Heidi’s look fit into the duality of the theme with the Fashion as Art theme and Costume Art exhibit exploring the evolution of body types. Now that we’re a few days out from the Met Gala I love it, and I’m happy to see this new profile of Heidi’s costume in the New York Times. They have a brief e-mail statement from her along with a longer interview with her SFX artist, Mike Marino, who has worked with Heidi on her Halloween costumes and also did Bad Bunny’s aged look. Here’s a segment from that piece, with more at the source:
[Heidi Klum’s] look was inspired by the 19th-century marble sculpture “Veiled Vestal,” by Raffaele Monti. She turned to her longtime collaborator Mike Marino, the creative force behind her Halloween looks and an Oscar-nominated makeup artist, to emulate the exact draped look of the marble.
The illusion was convincing. While Klum appeared immovable and stiff, the garment was actually made of soft foam latex. “The design allowed for much more movement than it appeared, so I could eat and use my hands quite comfortably,” Klum said in an email to The New York Times.
The outfit was realistic enough for her to play pranks on guests inside the walls of the museum, she said. “I would stand perfectly still as guests walked by, convinced I was part of the décor. Then, when I moved, they were surprised.”
She added that removing it all at the end of the night was its own intensive process, and that she found traces of makeup on her arm this morning “even after showering twice.”
For Marino, this was something of a dream project, he said in an interview on Tuesday.
“I’ve always admired Michelangelo and Bernini and all of the artists of the past,” he said. “I worshiped those people when I was a kid, and I studied their work. Being able to do this is a homage to my idols.”
There are more technical details about the costume in the interview. The latex was put in a blender and then injected into a mold of Heidi’s body. They sprayed everything with a shiny substance to give it a marble look. Heidi also has get ready with me YouTube short with Glamour, that’s below, showing the process of applying the costume and makeup. She described it as “just like wearing a sweatsuit,” but it looks claustrophobic to me, especially when they put the face on. There are videos on Instagram, also below, where you can see the insane details, including her feet and get a longer look at the process. It took about five hours but Marino said that Heidi is used to that.
Heidi looked like a realistic statue and she would have scared the hell out of me! I really wanted to know if she could get out of all that to go to the bathroom, and she sort-of answered that on TikTok. She posted a clip of her sitting up in a van headed to the Met Gala with the caption “Thinking about the fact that statues don’t get bathroom breaks.” That’s commitment!
Fashion is art kinda pic.twitter.com/g7oCujVfsX
— cj- (@cjnieI) May 5, 2026
Photos credit: BFA.com/Backgrid, Getty Images and via social media and Wikipedia
i saw some commentary hating on heidi and her ‘outfit’, complaining it was costume, not fashion. a bunch of ‘poor heidi’, always getting it wrong nonsense. i thought this was super fun (god forbid), and it looks like everyone is having fun with her. the pictures of her and rihanna are delightful!
I agree with you! I think Heidi’s outfit was wonderful and she had fun with it! It was fashion and art to me. I generally don’t pay attention to the Met outfits, but good for Heidi for being herself and enjoying the ride!
Heidi’s lewks are not always my favorite but I admire her commitment.
I can’t do this kind of thing, but I love seeing what people/designers can do without a budget to think about.
She is fashion as art, that’s for sure.
R E S P E C T
Her costumes are kind of a bright spot in the world to me. I’m always wondering what will she and her team come up with next?
That is pretty remarkable. Bravo, Heidi!
Freaks me out looking at it!
If I walked past her thinking it a statue and she moved I’d have a heart attack!
But good for her. Proper homage to art.
This is really cool! I missed her somehow in the first photos I went through. I’m always impressed with this statue (and others of marbles that have a veil) and what a great way to celebrate the theme and honor the work with textures. Very, very impressive.
Definitely one of the most original costumes at the Met Gala this year! I always appreciate her for going the extra mile even if I’m not really a fan.
This is absolutely the purest on theme costume of the night. HEIDI UNDERSTOOD THE ASSIGNMENT. This is incredible, it LOOKS like the marbles themselves, which in turn are CARVED OUT OF MARBLE to look like cloth. As a former costumer, I say BRAVA!!! ❤️❤️❤️
Its the MET not Halloween. And I’m tired of her Halloween outfits as well
She was more on theme than the majority.