Steven and Corinna Collier on their new shop in Leith: ‘It allows us to be more creative with our art’
Saying farewell to Stockbridge after a quarter century selling Mexican-themed gifts, Steven and Corinna Collier are forging new friends at Caoba’s Leith store and getting involved in the local community, says Evie Glen
At the corner of Anderson Place, by the Water Of Leith, trails of papel picado bunting cast polka dots of sun over shelves stacked with Talavera tiles, silver jewellery, sacred hearts and rows of sauces. Caoba is a Mexican gift shop originally founded by Steven and Corinna Collier 25 years ago in Stockbridge. But with their lease coming to an end, the couple recently decided to move the entire business to their other store in Leith.
With bigger premises, the couple have expanded their stock of art, home décor and food supplies sourced from across Mexico and Central America. After a trip to Mexico in the early noughties, they ‘simply fell in love’ with the region’s handmade folk art. Everything they source is done so ethically and fairly, direct from local artisans who they have forged relationships with over their years travelling around Mexico by bus. That connection to the local stretches back across the Atlantic, with Stockbridge residents mourning the loss of a shop that had been a mainstay on their high street since 2001.
Thankfully, the Leith store is just a scenic walk along the river or short bus trip away. Looking brightly to the future, the Colliers say in a joint statement that ‘the Leith shop allows us to be more creative with our art, to display work and makes the store more of a destination.’ Eager to expand their community of friends and customers in a new part of the city, Caoba was a sponsor of Leith’s recent Fiends In The Furrows folk horror festival. It was a fitting collaboration for the store, which is teeming with tarot cards and Day Of The Dead skulls staring out through an incense haze.
Caoba, 20 Anderson Place, Edinburgh.