Rich and Young. If it sounds like an aspirational lifestyle brand, that's happily apropos. Elliat Rich and her husband, James Young, are emblematic of a new breed of designer-makers who nonchalantly disrupt the status quo.

Eschewing the endless chatter of the East Coast intelligentsia, the pair took off after graduating from the Sydney College of Arts and spent a year trekking 2000 kilometres through the Snowy Mountains, across the One Tree plain then along the Murrumbidgee River up to Broken Hill. On camel.

"Actually, two camels and three donkeys," Elliat says with a laugh. "We spent a year acquiring the animals, training them and ourselves, making all our pack gear and a few dollars. Then we just took off for another year. Being able to walk, to be in your own head and maintain one line of thought for sometimes hours on end is a very unique experience."

In an era of mindfulness, their odyssey took them close to nirvana. At least, to Uluru. Rich eventually accepted an internship in Alice Springs at the Centre for Appropriate Technology's Enterprise Workshop, which delivers training and experience to Aboriginal makers. Young began work on a camel farm, before enrolling in a custom-made footwear course at Adelaide TAFE (one of the few institutions to still teach the skill). Today he makes highly refined footwear for men and women, as well as sumptuous baggage.

Rich specialises in intellectually rigorous conceptual design, but with a rawness uniquely of its place. You can feel it in her Coolgardie Line pedestal, which takes the rustic simplicity of a makeshift colonial strongbox and turns it into an abstracted tallboy in timber, brass and resin. The three-panelled screen from the same series is reminiscent in its gangly elegance of the work of French master craftsman Jean-Michel Frank. Her Urban Billy, composed of five hand-formed pieces of borosilicate glass with a bent mountain ash sleeve and lid embodies all the ritual of colonial tea-making, stylishly updated.

Last year, visitors to the new Australian pavilion at the Venice Biennale of Architecture were invited to sit and take in the exhibition in a series of Anerle-aneme chairs designed by Rich and handmade from strips of spray-painted black, ochre and blue steel by a team of seven craftspeople (Rich acknowledges each by name). Anerle-aneme means "sit a little while" in the Arrernte language of central Australia.

The chairs were scattered about The Pool, a swimming pool installed in the space with a spoken soundscape by Olympians Ian Thorpe and Shane Gould, author Christos Tsiolkas, musician Paul Kelly and fashion brand Romance Was Born, among others.

"Elliat's aesthetic aligned perfectly with ours," says architect Isabelle Tolland, creative director of The Pool along with Michelle Tabet and Amelia Holliday. "There's a certain nostalgia embedded in her designs that speaks to our shared childhoods. The chairs were very much part of the overall installation, not just functional stations from which to view it."

Dreams and reality

Rich's design process is one of rapprochement – integrating and echoing the culture in which she executes her work.

"When James and I decided to move here we had an idealistic vision of being able to affect change within a fairly troubled community. But little by little we had to let some of those ideals go and work with the reality of things, to reassess our roles here based on experience and in sync with the knowledge gained by people who have been here a long time.

"It's been really rewarding for me to be able to create tangible works that reflect my beliefs about the possibility of meaningful and peaceful collaboration."

Surely there are downsides to a life spent so far from the maddening crowd?

"Oh, you know, I guess we miss some of those 'networking' opportunities," she chuckles. "But out here there's a great mix of not just creatives but also trade practitioners, and that means that our ideas, like our ideals, are anchored to a new sense of reality."

It's a reality that offers unique opportunities. Rich and Young are collaborating with Brazilian design superstars Fernando and Humberto Campana, on a National Gallery of Victoria commission, producing designs with Aboriginal makers.

"It's a project I would never feel comfortable doing," Rich admits, "but with an external 'neutral' factor it dissipates the [black and white] 'sides' and feels OK."

Like I said, Rich & Young – a very cool lifestyle brand.

NEED TO KNOW

Where The couple work from the Elbowrkshp, 6/8 Hele Crescent, Ciccone, Alice Springs. Retail open Monday to Friday, 9am to 4pm.

For more on Elliat Rich see elliatrich.com

For more on James Young, Shoemaker & Outfitters, see jamesbyoung.com.au. Shoe consultations and fittings by appointment.