Heidi Klum launches fashion line for German discounter Lidl
June 6, 2017
Just ahead of its launch on the US market, discount supermarket Lidl has announced its cooperation with one of Germany's best-known faces: supermodel Heidi Klum.
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Heidi Klum — Germany's most beautiful export
The German supermodel with the US passport has been extraordinarily popular on the other side of the pond for the past 20 years.
Image: Reuters/L. Jackson
The confident look
Heidi Klum's collaboration with German global discount supermarket Lidl was just the next chapter in the supermodel's long and successful career. Now 44, it all began for Heidi with a modeling contest in 1992. After winning against thousands of contestants, the teenager from Bergisch Gladbach graduated from high school and then moved to the US in 1993.
Image: Getty Images/A.Jones
First German Victoria's Secret angel
Klum's breakthrough came in 1998 when she was chosen for the cover of Sports illustrated. That same year she began working with Victoria's Secret, whose annual lingerie shows (like this one pictured in 2008) are legendary. Heidi became the first angel from Germany to walk at the event.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/Graylock
The ad girl
Apart from the Victoria's Secret shows (pictured here in 2009), Klum did more photo modeling than catwalks. In 2011, fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld criticized her for not appearing at the major fashion shows. Klum's response? At 176 cm tall, she was "too short and round."
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/E. Foley
Model mom
Since 2004, Heidi Klum has been ensuring her profession doesn't run out of young models — in front of TV cameras in both Germany and the US. On Germany's Next Topmodel, she searches for the most beautiful girl in the country, amidst plenty of trials, tears and troubles. Klum consistently rejects criticism that she is perpetuating unhealthy beauty ideals for young women.
Image: Getty Images
Is that Heidi?
Heidi Klum became a US citizen in 2008. She is known for extravagantly celebrating the American holiday of Halloween. Since 2000, she has invited her celebrity friends to a massive Halloween bash. There is also a lot of speculation ahead of time over her own costume, which is always elaborate and never disappoints — such as this one in 2003.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/D. Herrick
Ups and downs
Klum's private life hasn't always been a walk in the park. After a six-year marriage with hair stylist Ric Pipino, she had her first child with Italian Formula 1 manager Flavio Briatore in 2004. A year later, she married British pop singer Seal (pictured), with whom she has three children. They divorced in 2012.
Image: picture alliance/dpa/P. Buck
The current partner
After a short affair with Red Hot Chili Peppers frontman Anthony Kiedis, Klum spent three years together with Vito Schnabel, the son of American artist Julian Schnabel. They broke up in 2017. She went public about dating Tokio Hotel musician Tom Kaulitz (pictured) during the Cannes Film Festival.
Image: picture-alliance/abaca/L. Hahn
Endless success
But Heidi doesn't have any time for relationship drama. Besides producing her modeling casting shows — she even got an Emmy for Project Runway in 2015 — she has also appeared in the US series Sex and the City and Desperate Housewives. In addition, she designs fashion collections, including the newest one for Lidl, writes books, and spends time with her four children.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/P. Buck
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Heidi Klum, 44, is not just known as a successful supermodel - and the first German Victoria's Secret angel - but also as the host of television casting shows in both the US and Germany, including "America's Got Talent," "Project Runway," and "Germany's Next Top Model."
Now Klum is set to lend not only her name, but also her fashion sense to a clothing line made exclusively for discount supermarket Lidl.
Lidl, which offers both food and non-food items, called the collection "high-end, yet affordable."
"Fashion should be fun and everyone should be able to afford it," Klum said in a statement.
"We're happy to let you know that we're working together with Heidi Klum. Let yourselves be surprised," tweeted the retailer.
What exactly Klum's new line will look like will indeed be a surprise, though Lidl did say that it would be presented in the context of its new Lidl Fashion Week, a recurring event featuring various designers.
Lidl maintains 3,200 stores in Germany and over 10,000 in nearly 30 countries in Europe. Its no-frills model sees minimal staff, basic presentation, limited selection, and a mix of no-name products and brand-names.
This summer, Lidl has said it will be opening 20 stores in North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia, with as many as 100 planned on the East Coast within the next year.
The launch will likely put pressure on Wal-Mart and traditional grocery chains in the US, which have already seen stiff competition from German discounter Aldi - Lidl's biggest rival.
Klum's collection will be available later this year in both Europe and the US.