Okay so—Heidi Klum. The Queen of Halloween, which sounds dramatic until you realize it’s actually true. Like, I used to think Halloween was about face paint and those last-minute CVS wigs that smell vaguely like burnt plastic and regret, but Heidi… she made it an art form. Every year, this woman shows up to her own party looking like something between a science experiment and a fever dream—and I mean that in the highest possible compliment.

But lately, I’ve been thinking about her costumes—like, really thinking about them (because I’m in that phase of motherhood where the only adult thought I have between diaper changes and reheating coffee is about someone else’s latex prosthetics, apparently). Maybe it’s envy. Maybe it’s admiration. Maybe it’s me trying to remember what it felt like to have that much… commitment to something utterly frivolous.

I remember her as Betty Boop—no, wait, Jessica Rabbit, that one was insane—the full silicone suit, the cartoon curves, the way she basically transformed herself into a living, breathing animation. Who does that? I was probably still trying to fit into my pre-baby jeans at that point, like, “Oh wow, she’s in a foam body suit and I’m just trying to get through the day without crying into a pile of laundry.”

And then there was the old lady costume. Remember that? She came to her own party covered in wrinkles and gray hair, like she’d time-traveled fifty years ahead just to prove she could. It was grotesque and kind of brilliant. And I thought—God, that’s what it looks like when you’re not afraid of aging. Meanwhile, I was still Googling “postpartum skin elasticity” at 2 a.m., eating stale cereal, wondering if my face would ever look awake again.

The worm—oh my GOD, the worm. That’s when I realized she’s not doing this for applause. She’s doing it for the performance. The absurdity. The complete surrender to transformation. She was literally encased in rubber, like some kind of glamorous larva, and she still looked… free. Like she’d crawled out of the collective exhaustion of womanhood just to say, “Look, I can still shock you.”

And maybe that’s what’s been hitting me lately. That creative abandon. That play. Because motherhood, as much as I love it, feels like it quietly steals that part of you—the part that used to obsess over details that didn’t matter. I used to plan costumes that took weeks. Now I’m just like, “Which pumpkin pajamas still fit the baby?”

But watching Heidi—year after year, metamorphosing into aliens and vampires and worms and clouds and whatever feverish thing she dreams up—it reminds me that transformation doesn’t die after kids. It just… hides for a while. It waits for you to remember that you can still do something ridiculous just for the thrill of it.

Maybe that’s why I can’t stop scrolling through her Halloween archive. It’s not about the prosthetics or the glitter or even the shock factor. It’s about that feeling of becoming again. Of saying, “Yes, I’m exhausted and stretched thin and kind of invisible most days—but I can still show up as someone else, even if it’s just for a night.”

So yeah, Heidi Klum might be the Queen of Halloween, but maybe—just maybe—she’s also a reminder that reinvention is still possible. Even if your version of it looks less like a 10-hour makeup transformation and more like putting on eyeliner without smudging it.

(Which honestly feels like a miracle in itself.)

written by Cristine Tenier