About Us
After many years in the design field creating everything from casual-wear, aerobic-wear, body builder's custom competition suits and a variety of other creative endeavors, Gayle opened Alfino Gallery, a wearable art gallery located in the famed Pike Place Market in Seattle, Washington. For nine years she designed and sold her wearable art, everything from a gorgeous stretch velvet line, to custom jackets, hats, hand painted scarves, leather and tapestry handbags, even a bit of custom jewelry. Each piece was created with her special design panache, selling to people worldwide. In January 2003 she closed her boutique and continued on in a studio based design business, further developing her leather handbags and accessory line.
After her marriage to a musician/lead guitarist, she became fascinated with ideas for improving leather guitar strap designs and other music industry items. While studying his various straps and finding them structurally lacking in so many ways, as well as listening to complaints of discomfort while performing, she decided to change the design concept of his straps. That light bulb moment brought about the idea of searching for ways to improve on the overall structure of guitar, bass and other instrument straps in general. Receiving feedback from her husband and his musician friends, she set out to recreate a comfortable and functional design for guitar and bass players. Researching and asking musicians in the local music community she once again heard the common complaints of shoulder, back and neck pain. Spending time observing guitarists as they performed she noticed many common denominators between the musician and their instrument. With everything between the shifting and constant repositioning of the strap and the dive bombing of the guitar neck when the musician would bend forward, she came to some defining conclusions concerning strap ergonomics. These observations combined with her earlier years in custom designing body-wear led to the prototype development of recreating the standard guitar strap. With plenty of musicians to glean input from, Gayle redesigned the old market standard into a new exceptionally comfortable and function strap design! Gayle Winde Custom Guitar and Bass Straps was born, making what many claim are the most comfortable guitar straps in the marketplace today!
Custom design is and always has been the creative focus for Gayle Winde. Your individual input as a musician, specifications and specific needs are the basis of designing a personalized strap created just for you! Our goal is to work "with and for you", making your performing experience comfortable and creative! We invite you to check out our website photo gallery with a host of pictures of many fine straps designed for our growing client base. Today, Gayle Winde Design is located in the heart of guitar country Nashville, Tennessee, and she continues to design for many musicians locally, throughout the US and Internationally.
Product integrity, innovation, and stellar customer service, is and always has been the foundation for Gayle Winde Design.