NEW YORK — Heidi Klum has been organizing the most vibrant Halloween party for more than twenty years. But while she may now be the undisputed “Queen of Halloween,” it wasn’t always that way.

The idea for the bash came from a lack of other viable hotspots, she says. She remembers running around New York with a friend years earlier and thinking, “I can’t believe this, this is Manhattan… nobody likes a really cool party?”

So she created her own – and leaned heavily on the costumes.

“People want to be cool,” she says, “but I feel like that takes away the cool factor and everyone has more fun when you’re dressed up. It’s a great shield to have.”

Halloween 2024: Selena Gomez and Benny Blanco, more stars transform into lavish costumes

Klum has led by example, completely transforming himself over the years with prosthetics, special effects makeup and, two years ago, an elaborate worm costume that quickly went viral.

In honor of the spooky season, Klum lit up the New York skyline this week. The supermodel and “America’s Got Talent” judge kicked off preparations for her annual Halloween party Tuesday with a symbolic lighting of the Empire State Building.

The New York monument will be lit mostly orange with a layer of green to mimic a pumpkin.

After pulling the giant lever to “light up” the building and posing for cameras in a brilliantly colored orange suit, complete with ruby ​​red Dorothy-style slippers, Klum sat down with USA TODAY to talk Halloween and get a sneak peek to throw her legendary party.

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Heidi Klum looks back on favorite costumes

Although some early outfits were less elaborate, Klum still looks back on those costumes fondly.

“I was more involved in a way, hooking it up myself,” she says, recalling running to a medical supply store to get a skeleton that she could take apart for one of her first disguises.

In 2011, she went all out with a “Planet of the Apes” inspired costume that she cites as a favorite. However, it was difficult to get to the toilet, she says, and there was mild panic at the end of the evening when she couldn’t find the make-up artists to remove the prosthetics.

“I’ve learned so many things along the way,” Klum jokes.

She is also proud of the year in which she arrived at the age of 90.

“It was when I turned 40 and people were like, ‘You’re 40, when are you going to stop modeling because you have to hang up your wings and everything else,'” Klum says. “But I was like, ‘Old? I’ll make you look old.'” To complete the look, she wore contact lenses that darkened her eyes to show aging.

Then there was the Peacock multi-person costume, and that year she danced to “Thriller” down the street as the werewolf from the music video. “I love them all, even my very first one,” says Klum.

Heidi Klum crawls into her Halloween party as a fishworm, gets hugs from daughter Leni

Heidi Klum’s no-last-minute costume rule

She chooses her costume a year in advance and does not change her mind, sometimes even despite protests from her team. For example, several people were against the worm costume, but she stuck with it.

“I start pretty much the next day (after Halloween the year before)… I rack my brains,” she says of her costume planning, “Why do people find out two days early? It’s hard.”

Klum always opts for a big costume reveal at the party and is tight-lipped about this year’s outing, though she does say it will be time-consuming.

“It’ll be a hot minute,” she says. Klum plans to start preparing around 11 a.m. and hopes to be ready for the carpet by 9 p.m.

Leni Klum joins mother Heidi in the modeling world

Her eldest daughter Leni Klum will also be at the party this year, fresh off a new mother-daughter lingerie campaign.

“She’s been watching me all her life, all my kids have,” Klum says of her daughter entering the modeling industry. “They’ve seen what it’s like firsthand and they’re not afraid of the cameras.”

Heidi Klum and daughter Leni model lingerie in a new campaign photo shoot

The only important piece of advice she gave her daughter was to say no. Once you commit to a job, it’s important to see it through, Klum says, but she wants her daughter to know, “At the core, if you don’t want to do something, you have to be able to say no.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Halloween: Heidi Klum talks 2024 party, costume mishaps