Hamish,

I can verify from the pictures on the Highland Clans site that these are the same hose made by the same company. I have no idea why they would choose to carry only five standard colors. (Well, I can guess it would just be for economy -- it is less expensive to stock only the common colors -- but to be honest, part of the reason I got really excited about this line was the wide color variety, so it seems to me to defeat the purpose to only offer five standard colors that you can get in any kilt hose).

Also, they offer the same traditional garter ties. Like the hose, they don't offer the full range of colors. However, oddly enough, one of the colors they do offer is "lemon" which is strange because I have never seen any shade of yellow appear on their availability list! I would have stocked it if I knew about it! I'll have to ask about this color.

About shipping to the UK, believe it or not we frequently get customer orders coming through from the UK, for UK-made products. I scratch my head about it, and then process the order in good cheer! For companies that we deal direct with, I will usually just have them ship straight to the customer. Like you said, it just doesn't make sense to ship the good from the UK, to USA, then back to UK.

However, this sock company has a US distributor that handles orders for their US based retailers, so I don't actually deal with their UK office. That being said, I'm sure I could arrange for them to ship direct to you if you cannot find another UK based retailer.

Aye,
Matt