Artsy Gift Guide
Despite its recent condo-fication, Williamsburg is still an artistic bastion at heart. Below, some of the neighborhood’s holiday gift offerings for the aesthete in your life.
 

SHAG 108 Robeling Street
Dutch artist Riekje Jongsma ceramic sculptures at SHAG are, in fact, fully functional butt plugs and dildos ($180–$333). The term “sex toy” doesn’t apply here. Each white or cream phallus has artfully applied glazes in black, gold, and blue. Some depict famous heroines from myth and history: Rapunzel swinging from her hair, Indira Gandhi pantless and squatting, Cleopatra as a cat beneath ribbons of gold and royal blue. For those looking for unique ornaments, Yuliya Lanina puts baby-doll noggins onto bird bodies to form her creepy, kitschy decorations ($40 and up), and Dani Sigler fills clear Christmas bulbs ($18–$32) with pink feathers, locks of hair, tinsel, and condoms.
 

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Food Network fans are familiar with the sodium fiesta/Upper Midwest Lutheran church fusion cuisine which is the style of semi-homemade cooking by Food Network star Sandra Lee. New York political wonks also know that the condensed-soup aficionada is possibly the next first lady of the Empire State by way of her long-term relationship with state Attorney General and Democratic gubernatorial nominee Andrew Cuomo. Apparently to his mother’s dismay, the politico’s favorite dish is Sandra Lee’s tomato soup and cottage cheese lasagna.

But in the northern end of Kings County we can look beyond the pantry for nourishment. Enter Homemade: Brooklyn, a free pop-up festival celebrating local crafts, food, design and all-around artistry. It kicks off tonight and lasts through Sunday.

Going down at Metropolitan Green (439 Metropolitan Ave, bet. N 5th and Marcy), hands-on workshops, free shows and shopping abound. Local vendors setting up shop include the in-house line of Graham Ave indie boutique/vintage shop treehouseNYC, Williamsburg designer Fay Andrada, the mind behind these swingin’ London-inspired earrings.

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I am reminded of a certain men’s chain clothier with a name that’s a spinoff of the word “warehouse,” oft found throughout suburban America. Its commercial campaign ends in the tagline “I guarantee it.”

But the Williamsburg, inner-city counterpart, this weekend is Vintage shop Amarcord (Warehouse Sale), offering bargains upon bargains.

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The word “gold” conjures images of Olympic victory, wealth, images on Lucky Charms cereal boxes and perhaps, wiretapped conversations involving deposed Illinois governors. It has served as a monetary standard as well as being a great electrical conductor. But for this discussion it is the color of chemical element number 79’s affinity for fashion.

I was moved to write about the yellowish metal after seeing this great little gold-sequined black chiffon dress from Greenpoint’s Dalaga (the store is covered in this blog here). The gold splashes out from the left shoulder across the bias over and over the rich black v-necked collar in a sartorial expression of a 1920s speakeasy.

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Greenpoint boutique Dalaga, whose name means “quintessential woman in her prime” in Tagalog, is a pioneer of sorts, that is, if you considered the Franklin St of a few years ago a frontier.

When fashion designer Michelle Mangiliman opened the store in July ’06, some two years after she and her husband uprooted themselves from San Francisco for Greenpoint (the choice of neighborhood largely upon the urging of friends). Back then, “there was one bar and one coffee shop on Franklin St,” Mangiliman said in an email interview. “We loved the people, history, and character of the buildings immediately.”

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