Yekta

This little shop sells lots of fabric which can be worn as saris, scarves, headdresses or whatever you want. They also have a range of jewellery, accessories and some womens clothes. It’s worth a look because it’s different and you never know what you’re going to find.

I like to come into Yekta just to have a wee nosey around, but I hardly every buy anything from here. This store seems to be primarily aimed at hippies as they sell lots of flowy dresses and ethnic style clothes and jewellery.
They sell a huge selection of jewellery, including lots of bangles, dangly earrings and long necklaces, non of which really appeals to me. The prices are really very good here though, with most jewellery priced at around £2−5 which is quite a bargain. Yekta also sell lots of scarves and shawls and I have bough a fair few pashminas from this store over the years. They sell the scarves in virtually every colour imaginable, and when I bought mine they had a 2 for £5 deal going, so I thought this was a massive bargain and bought 4! I have worn them a lot, however, they are made in an incredibly thin material and so they aren’t warm at all the winter. There are also quite a lot of holes in them now, although the colour hasn’t run from them yet which is the one saving grace to them.
The prices in Yekta are excellent, but the quality of many of their goods leaves a lot to be desired.

I have to agree with the other reviewers — Yekta really isn’t all that great and it’s rather predictable as there are so many similar shops in this area.
There are a few things that caught my eye in particular such as a belly dancing outfit, a cuff bracelet with a spider on it and large glittery hoop earrings and I guess this emphasises that some of the stock here is a bit of a mish-​mash and therefore it’s hard for me to define this shop as it doesn’t really seem to have a theme.
The prices seemed reasonable though and I noticed a few pretty scarves that were only £1.

I don’t really like Yekta. It kind of reminds me of Lookah, which I hate, and I just don’t get the appeal of buying loads of £1 jewellery which is bound to break within a week.
Tie-​dye features highly in here, which I also hate, so you can see why this isn’t my fave place. It screams hippy, incense and pierced nosed-​dread wearing ladies, but it just doesn’t appeal to me.

This small shop recently had a refurbishment but the sort of tacky accessories, ideal for a festival, a rave or a dress-​up party are still the same.
It’s a bit of a random selection of stuff and don’t expect stuff to last more than really a night or two. I like the pashmina selection– quite affordable, but really not the type of store to write home about as their seem to be a lot of similar little shops about.

Yekta looks like a stall at a music festival. It’s full of outlandish sunglasses, florescent gloves and hats. There’s a selection of scarves, crocheted bags and big knitted hippy jumpers. It all reminds me of festival season and makes me want to dance to music in a field a bit.
But this shop isn’t in a field — it’s on a high street. It’s very affordable, full of a random assortment of jewellery and tie-​dye clothing, and it might float someone’s boat. It doesn’t float mine, and I’m giving it a poor rating because I find a lot of the stock to be tacky. But that’s not a particular reflection of the erratic choice you find in here, because its attempt at wacky will appeal to some. Customer service and price is good. But I can’t get by how much it’s like festival outlet meets the down end of Camden market.

There’s no denying that Edinburgh city centre has way more than it’s fair share of shops selling pashminas, jewellery, sunglasses and the like. But this place is bit quirky — think of a mix between AppleJack and Accessorize and you’re about right.
They have a great selection of more mainstream things, like earrings, bracelets, cuffs and belts, and their pashmina selection is almost good enough to rival nearby Lookah (but not quite!). But in the same tiny little shop you’ll also find the weirdest range of harem pants, tie-​dyed bags and clothes, as well as the down right weird: when I was in ther today they were selling conctact lenses, not just in all sorts of weird colours but also weird patterns.
So next time you find yourself in need of a pair of leopard-​print contacts, this should be your first port of call!!!