Klum said it took her two years of brainstorming to come up with the worm concept. “I like to do unexpected things, so I tried to come up with an outfit that was super ridiculous but also very familiar,” Klum said. “Because it’s Halloween, you need the creepy factor — and a little bit gross and disgusting.” Of course, she needed a talented special effects team to realize her creepy vision, so she teamed up with makeup artist Mike Marino and his Prosthetic Renaissance teamwork. They are her Halloween charm team. “No matter how crazy my ideas are, Mike will bring them to life,” Klum said. “I wanted to be Jessica Rabbit, and he said, ‘No problem.’ I wanted to be a werewolf in the ‘Thriller’ video, and he said, “No problem. “Clone me five times? ‘No problem.'”
Model admits he was hesitant about logistics when she came up with the concept of being a worm when she first called Marino undecided. “I called him up and said ‘make me a bug,’ and he said, ‘Huh?!?!?!’ He didn’t want to do it at first and kept encouraging me to come up with a new idea,” Klum said. “However, I’m not like that: when I’m in love with an idea, I don’t want to change.” How exactly did the team do it? Klum slid into a fully cocooned prosthetic shell (her arms fully retracted), and then they used special effects masks to make Klum’s face blend seamlessly into the folds of her costume, so only her eyes and mouth protruded.
She even found out during the design the beauty of bugs. “I love the color of the worm because of the many subtle pinks and browns in it,” Klum said. “Their segmented anatomy allows them to move so seamlessly: they look simple, but so much happens.”
Below, see more exclusive photos from Krum’s preparation.
