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fuego 718: around the world and back
at the beginning of a very fun strip along grand street in williamsburg sits fuego 718, an eclectic, bursting with color gift shop with super affordable and unique goods from around the world. fuego 718 offers some of the usual knicknacks and little books i often see in a gift store, but they also had lots of things i don’t often see. piles of postcards, some great note cards, a variety of kid items, jewelry as well as some nicely designed and stylish women’s bags of all materials and sizes. i ended up getting a couple of these guatemalan potholders pictured above — so much cheaper than the ones i can usually find and more interesting then the standard marimekko which often seem to end up being the only ones i can buy that aren’t tan or grey.
fuego 718 is also super green oriented. there were plenty of excellently designed recycled baskets, bracelets made from vinyl records and vases from used bottles. right now, they’re featuring artist leonor mendoza from venezuela with her handbags and very cool looking accessories all made with 100% recycled plastic bottles and paper.
fuego 718 definitely has a latin american and caribbean bent with plenty of handmade works from mexico, haiti, honduras although the shop also has many other items from asia – cambodia, thailand and nepal. there seems to be an obsession with dia de los muertos (day of the dead) related items such as the diaroma display above, as well as plenty of skeletons, figurines and other creatures representing the festivities. fuego 718 also shows lots of unique art — not my style but nice to see nonetheless.
as an added bonus, the owner alex aldama is really super nice and sweet. he was chatty in a very friendly, helpful way and just so happy to be able to provide the history and details of where he had found certain items and who had helped to produce them. his enthusiasm and sheer joy made visiting fuego 718 a pleasure, and from the comments on it seems i’m not the only one who feels that way. fuego 718, 249 grand street between driggs avenue and roebling street, .
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