I was lucky enough to receive an Original Fuzz guitar strap as a gift this year, and I’m absolutely delighted with it. Firstly, they look great – somewhat reminiscent of the woven straps produced by Gibson, and other companies in the 1970s. Mine is called Rust Stripes, but there are a lot of cool designs to chose from – with names like Kurt Vile, Doug Martsch, Duane Eddy, Cusco and Dick Dale. I play a lot of older instruments from the 60s and 70s and these straps suit my vintage guitars perfectly.
Vintage styling
But better still is the fact that they are so well made, of high quality materials, and each one is unique. The patterned side is actually hand-woven in Peru, under fair-trade conditions – “Each strap is as unique as the artisan that crafted it.”
And they don’t suffer from some of the failures off other straps. It’s thick; the woven ‘pattern side’ is backed with a similarly thick plain fabric – but one that has sufficient friction to reduce slipping and neck dive – something you normally need a wider leather strap to achieve. The end pieces are rigid leather- they shouldn’t deform in the same way that thinner straps do. And they are long; mine has a maximum length of 5 foot; sufficient for all but the lowest slung guitars.
A premium guitar strap
But a quality product does come with a premium price tag – but if you are going to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on super-cool vintage guitar, shouldn’t you get a strap to match?
Original Fuzz are an American company specialising in retro-styled guitar accessories: straps, cables and gig bags. You can find out more about Original Fuzz straps on their website here http://www.originalfuzz.com/products/peruvian-straps
These suspiciously look like Souldier’s famous trademarked snakehead shaped ends. Instead of a knock off, try the original, http://www.souldier.us