Editor’s Note: Featuring the good, the bad and the ugly, “Look of the Week” is a regular series dedicated to unpacking the most talked about outfits of the past seven days.

CNN
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Heidi Klum calls home.

The most highly anticipated costume of the spooky season is here – and the ‘Queen of Halloween’ did not disappoint.

Klum continued her tradition of wearing wildly elaborate outfits to her own star-studded annual bash, arriving at the party this year dressed as ET.

The 51-year-old model made a dramatic entrance at the Hard Rock Hotel in New York, with her face peeking out from the alien’s neck beneath an animatronic head that blinked and moved its mouth. With the costume’s feet at knee height, a raised stage (and a smoke machine) helped create the impression that Klum was walking around on E.T.’s signature stubby legs.

The former Victoria’s Secret Angel completed the look with an outsized wig, dress and lipstick – a nod to the moment when Drew Barrymore’s character, Gertie, dresses the alien in Steven Spielberg’s 1982 film ‘ET The Extra-Terrestrial’.

Klum’s husband, Tom Kaulitz, also attended the party as ET, with his wigless costume making a sort of him-and-her complete (though Spielberg has long maintained that the character is neither male nor female).

Before the event, Klum told the New York Times that her glowing fingertips and motorized headpiece, which weighed about five pounds, were controlled remotely by a member of her team. She also revealed plans to wear an adult diaper because it is difficult to take off the costume during the party, saying, “I may never have to use (it), but at least that way I don’t have to don’t think about it.”

Klum kept fans guessing until the last minute, sharing close-ups of the costume on social media and live-streaming her preparations (albeit with her outfit hidden from view) via Amazon Live earlier on Thursday.

The model was joined on the pre-party program by the model’s longtime collaborator Mike Marino, the Hollywood prosthetic designer behind some of her most intricate Halloween costumes. Marino called this year’s design “probably the most complicated thing we’ve ever done.”

“Her whole face and body are glued up,” he said. “And it really takes months to build and design.”

Klum said Marino initially thought the costume was too complex. “When I asked Mike if he could make this costume for me, his first response was ‘no,'” she said on Amazon Live, recalling that she “begged and begged” him to change his mind.

The German model held the first of her annual events on October 31 in 2000, seven years after she moved to the US and “fell in love” with Halloween. “The only thing missing was a fantastic party,” she told The Hollywood Reporter in 2018.

The party has since become one of Halloween’s most talked-about celebrations, thanks in part to Klum’s imaginative costumes. In recent years, she has appeared as a robot, a peacock, a werewolf, Princess Fiona from ‘Shrek’ and, perhaps most famously, a giant earthworm in 2022.

At this year’s event, The Roots drummer Questlove arrived as a mad hatter, model Haley Kalil dressed as Tim Burton’s ‘Corpse Bride’ and ‘The Real Housewives of New York’ star Bethenny Frankel arrived as Wonder Woman.

Influencer Zach Justice, dressed as KFC Colonel Sanders, meanwhile, arrived with an oversized egg that he pulled open to reveal “America’s Got Talent” contortionist Sofie Dossi, who was folded inside into a chicken costume.

Klum’s costume may have won the award for most elaborate, but she wasn’t the only alien celebrity this year. By apparent coincidence, Janelle Monae posted her own ET costume on social media a day earlier. The actor and musician worked with special effects artists to produce the outfit, which also included a glowing fingertip, for an appearance on “The Jennifer Hudson Show.”