How Heidi Klum Got Her 2026 Met Gala Statue Look

Whether you loved or hated Heidi Klum’s look for the Met Gala, she was, at the very least, statuesque.

The model and “Project Runway” host, also known as the queen of Halloween, with a reputation for committing to her costume, turned up to the gala looking like a Roman statue — her interpretation of the night’s theme, “Fashion Is Art.”

Her 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.”

In a phone interview that has been edited and condensed, he explained how it all came together.

When did you start planning this look with Heidi?

I think this started in February. It takes so many months to build these things — like for Halloween, we usually have six months. So this was a shorter time frame, and this was as complicated or more complicated than any of the Halloween looks.

And how did you actually create that illusionary marble look?

Well, a lot of what we do is magic. The material is foam latex — so that’s latex, but whipped up in a special blender to make it rise, almost like whipped cream. And then we inject that into a mold of her whole body. Then it goes into a special oven, and it’s baked at a certain temperature.

Once we have this spongy, lightweight material, that’s when the expert work happens. That’s when we paint the whole design to look like marble, down to every marble vein, every crack, every little speck. We also then sprayed it with this special iridescent spray to get that reflective marble type of quality, and we sprayed a shiny sealer over it, a flexible sealer, so that it can appear to look hard.

So the veil that is seemingly draped on her — that is one piece of molded latex?

Most of it is a bodysuit that we designed to shape around her body, and it closes in the back with zippers and clasps that are hidden within the folds. We made separate sleeves for the arms. And then the face is a separate piece that gets glued onto the suit and to her face. The hands are separate pieces, as well.

Oh, I thought her hands were painted to look like marble.

The palms are painted, but the tops of the hands are smooth, the way marble hands look — very smooth, and they have these very specific dimples at the knuckles. And the fingers are smooth, too; they don’t have any lines on them.

So, how long was she sitting in that makeup chair to make this happen?

I think it was like four or five hours.

Which isn’t a big deal for Heidi, right? I remember she was in the makeup chair for about eight hours for her last Halloween look.

Oh, yeah, five hours, she can breeze by that anytime. She’s a professional at this now.