NEAR WEST SIDE — Both my dog and my guitar often get compliments for the beautiful vintage fabric sewn over recycled seatbelts and strapped to their necks — impulse buys that I picked up at Lollapalooza’s Green Street Market years ago.
They’re the handiwork of Jen Tabor, the creative brain and boss lady at Chicago-based Souldier who turned a homemade birthday gift into a life-changing business venture.
Tabor, 36, was a suburban orchestra teacher and cellist moonlighting in a local band when her impromptu crafting project — handmade guitar straps like the one on my Fender — became a bigger hit than the rock group that she left behind.
“The guys in the band needed birthday presents and I didn’t want them to fight over who got the wallet and who go the bottle of wine, so I just made them guitar straps, one to fit each of their personalities,” she said. “We would play at Abbey Pub and I would have our T-shirts and CD, and I’d put out a few guitar straps. And the other bands we played with would buy our straps. That’s how the company got started.”
Tabor sold Chicago music shops owners on the straps, which she fashioned from fabric cut out on her coffee table, assembled in her bedroom and packaged in the kitchen of her tiny Humboldt Park apartment.
“I would just walk into a store and have a bucket of straps and ask people to buy them, and once they saw them they said, 'Yes.' And then it was game on,” she said. “The next weekend I took a bucket to Milwaukee, the next to Minneapolis. Most of my first customers are still my customers now.”
Soon, Tabor had to hire people to help her sew just to keep up with demand and started living the exhausting double life of a teacher and entrepreneur that was ultimately untenable.
“I would spend my lunch break making calls to stores pretending that I was a real CEO and then running back in to teach the kids,” she said. “I had to quit teaching so I could focus my attention on Souldier.”
She took her guitar straps on the road to every craft show, music accessory trade show and music fest that would have her. Now, she sells her straps online and at shops all over the country and abroad.
At first Tabor didn't think Lollapalooza would accept her company as a vendor. Then, she realized her hand-sewn straps made of recycled seatbelts, old vintage fabric no one wants and damaged leather hides made Souldier just the kind of “green” company that Lollapalooza promoters were looking for at the Green Street Market.
This year, Souldier made limited-edition Lollapalooza guitar straps that are on sale at the Lolla pop-up shop in the Loop and will be available this weekend at the festival.
It was quite a big break. But, really, Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy is the guy who changed everything.
The Chicago musician appeared on "Saturday Night Live" wearing one of her guitar straps, an “Owl Strap” that he bought himself at Avenue N Guitars.
“The next day people started calling asking, ‘Where do we get that strap? You guys have the owl strap?’” Tabor said. “There was all this attention, and it just blew up.”
She ran into Tweedy at the Do Division fest, where the rocker’s son was playing a set with the band Tilly Monster, and pitched a signature line of straps for each member of Wilco — and a stick bag for the drummer.
“They are the nicest, kindest people, and they recommend us to their friends, and their friends are the crème de la crème,” Tabor said. “It’s been a fabulous relationship.”
Now, you can spot Souldier straps on stage with loads of bands — from Mumford and Sons, The Lumineers and Aerosmith to The Decemberists, Dave Matthews Band and Deer Tick, to name a few.
Souldier has long outgrown its apartment-sized operation and set up shop in the Fulton Manufacturing District, where Tabor’s crew still struggles to keep up with demand and develop new products, including purses, leather bracelets, headbands, clothes, camera straps and more.
“What I like is, there’s no limits. And I love being challenged. I don’t ever want to get stale,” Tabor said.
“I think too many times people think I did something successful, and I’m just going to ride this thing out. My philosophy is nothing lasts forever, and I have to build something that will last. Maybe we’ll design shoes, or one day have retail store.”
But one thing won’t change: Souldier straps will always be Chicago made, as the label says.
“I have constant offers from people who want to tell me what my margins would be in some other town. I rip them up and throw them away,” Tabor said.
“I am 100 percent devoted to manufacturing in my own shop in Chicago. I’m Chicago proud.”
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