The couple handcrafting luxury croc skin bags retailing in the thousands

Here you'll find an eclectic couple of cobblers turned leather makers who, for nearly 30 years have been breathing life into luxury bespoke bags that command prices in the thousands.

Brian and Mary Faux (ironically that is their surname) get most of their business from manufacturing crocodile-skin handbags, made from skins supplied by crocodile farms in northern Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia.

They have contracts to make products for many luxury brands around Australia.

The skins come from Australian farms, but are tanned overseas first, not only because it's a dying art here, but also because overseas tanners, such as the Italians, have more of a knack for it than us.

The couple also have their own business, Wild Harry, where they make one-off bags using various skins and leathers. They've made products with croc skin and leathers from ostriches, cows and even stingrays.

"No skin gets wasted," Ms Faux said. "We make key tags, hair clips, and bracelets with what's left over."

She said while many other manufacturers only specialised in handbags, they made a range of products including wallets, coin purses, jewellery boxes, cuff links, belts and even stubby coolers.

Their move from shoes into leather manufacturing was born out of a conversation with croc farmers John and Lillian Lever, from Koorana Crocodile Farm near Yeppoon.

The farmers were seeking manufacturers who could make a higher quality croc skin products than what they were getting at the time to sell in their on-farm gift shop.

"Croc skin is very valuable and the farmers work very hard to produce it," Ms Faux said.

"You can't present something that looks like it's been made in the back shed by someone who has had three courses of leather work."

Their start as cobblers meant they understand how things came together as they'd had experience pulling shoes apart and putting them back together.

They're very proud of being 100 per cent Australian made, recently getting their certification to display the green and gold logo on their products.

They make all the individual components for their products and do not import any already made parts to be sewn into their designs.

The only imported items would be some fabrics, zipping and fittings from Japan or Italy as the quality was better than what could be sourced in Australia.

"We have a loyal customer base that are committed to buying Australian made, high quality leather goods and accessories," Ms Faux said.

One of their biggest struggles was trying to compete with overseas manufacturing prices and sellers who claimed their products were Australian made, but were not.

"I see a lot of people say their products are made in Australia, but they're not, they've been made in India or Mexico and imported here," Ms Faux said.

"You can't do this from the floor of your living room, you need a set up like this to do it properly.

"I find it quite offensive and I think it should be stopped."

They said they'd persevered because they believed in Australian manufacturing and it was often important to tourists buying crocodile skin products when visiting to have something genuinely made in Australia

"Up in Darwin they get a lot of Chinese tourists coming in off the cruise ships and they really don't want something made in China."

They acknowledged what they did was quite niche and said while they still had plenty of business, they were getting older and the pool of people who did what they were doing was getting smaller over time.

Plus being contemporary small business owners meant there were a lot of other elements that went into getting the product out there, including photographing, selling, shipping and marketing.

To reduce their business's carbon footprint, the couple has planted around 530 eucalypt trees on their property.

"Our aim is to always be running well in excess of Australia's carbon neutral guidelines."

They also run six cows, they said they were now more like "pets" as they were "too fat for breeding" but were used to keep the grass down.