Heidi Klum attended the Bambi Awards in Munich on Thursday, where she was honoured for her work promoting diversity — a moment that deserved a look with impact, clarity, and a touch of modern glamour.

But what Heidi delivered instead was an exercise in taste versus access, and unfortunately, taste didn’t win.

Are you telling me that with the entire Elie Saab Fall 2025 Haute Couture collection — a lineup filled with exquisite silhouettes, refined embellishment, and gowns that could have given her a major fashion moment — Heidi selected this particular dress?

The gown, with its heavy floral embroidery, and bulky mermaid hem, feels like it was plucked from a mid-2000s moodboard. At first glance I genuinely thought it was a vintage moment, because the design language reads so incredibly dated. And not in the charming, archival, rediscovered-gem kind of way — more in a “we’ve evolved past this” way.

It’s not that Heidi can’t handle dramatic gowns. She absolutely can. But this particular construction doesn’t flatter her frame, and the proportions swallow. So when you contrast this with the many sleeker options in the collection, the choice becomes even more baffling.

Heidi rarely plays it subtle, which have started to find as part of her charm. But this? This was a huge miss — all volume, no payoff.