Apparel: Eddie Sets the Style

• Share

To help give Actor Eddie Murphy an authentic street-smarts look, producers of the hit film Beverly Hills Cop attired their star in a faded T shirt marked MUMFORD PHYS. ED. DEPT. across the chest. Now the burgundy-lettered garment has become a hit in its own right. Swamped by requests for the shirts from Murphy's fans, Detroit's Samuel C. Mumford High School has turned to a national distributor to handle the demand. As of last week Artex Manufacturing of Overland Park, Kans., had received more than 24,000 orders for the shirt, which sells for around $10, and sales were growing fast.

The shirt boom has been an unexpected boon to Mumford High, a virtually all- black public school in an upper-middle-class neighborhood of Detroit. The % garment was picked for the film by Jerry Bruckheimer, a Beverly Hills Cop producer and 1961 graduate of the school. Mumford plans to use profits from the shirt sales to buy new books, computers and athletic equipment. It will also share its good fortune with other schools in Detroit. Says Queen Loundmon, the activities director at Mumford High: "This has created a whole new kind of pride."