Victor with Karl and Karl

What Happened:

Villanueva and a co-worker, Kyle Fox, were in SoHo on Wednesday for a work event. Obviously, they were both wearing Villaneuva’s necklaces–Villanueva was wearing Grace Jones (which he made specifically for the work event, ‘Divas Shop for Opera’) and Fox was wearing Karl. They were walking along Prince St. when Kate Bosworth (seriously, she just happened to be around too) stopped them, gestured toward’s Fox’s Karl necklace and said, “He’s right down the block if you want to see him.”

For proof, see Kate Bosworth’s retweet about the incident here:

In Villanueva’s words: “We were like ‘Whaaaat!?!? Oh, OK thanks, Kate!’ So we walked down the block and literally all I saw was this white mane and it was like oh.my.god. Karl was the very first piece I made. He’s been such an icon in my own mind so to see him on Prince St. I was just starstruck.”

But then, how to approach the Kaiser? Do you say hi? Do you even dare?

Villanueva told his co-worker, who was wearing the Karl necklace, to walk by with his chest out. To no avail. Lagerfeld did not notice. Emboldened, Villaneuva called out, “Karl!”

We’ll let Villanueva take if from here:

As if in a scene from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, all these people apparated from somewhere like out of the sewers and [Karl] had a handler that had an iPhone that started to shoot pictures of us. I wanted to shoot pictures of Karl and Kyle. Karl said ‘For this type of photo we should move over here because the lighting is better, no?’ And of course he was right. And then all of a sudden, I’m styling my piece next to Karl Lagerfeld with my artwork and my model. And I’m saying, ‘Karl can you move over just a little?’ It was insane. I’m taking pictures, the guy who came out of nowhere is taking pictures. Then I put on the Karl necklace and hopped into the photo and I look and there are legions of people and then he said, ‘This is why I don’t like to stop and take these pictures.’ So I was like, ‘I’m sorry!’, and he said, ‘Don’t apologize you’re different–not everyone makes my picture.’

From there, Villanueva gave Lagerfeld a bunch of his business cards, made plans to send him a special Karl pendent to Chanel HQ in Paris and Villanueva and Fox walked back and “jumped up and down like Reese Witherspoon in Election.”

Now if that’s not a good New York story I don’t know what is.