RUBEN ‘IDOL’-IZES THEIR JERSEYS
Ruben Studdard’s “American Idol” style is turning into big business.
The maker of Ruben’s trademark 205 shirts has grown a business from two employees last February when the show started to 150 workers this week.
The 205 refers to the area code of Studdard’s hometown, Birmingham, Alabama, and ever since he first appeared on “Idol” wearing a custom-made jersey with the code, the two brothers who designed and make the shirts, Frederick and Willie Jenkins, say the phones have not stopped ringing.
Orders jumped from a few dozen in the first week to a few hundred last month to several thousand a week now.
“Our phone started ringing and everything went crazy,” Jenkins told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
“We’ve had people drive here [Birmingham] from a couple of states away to get shirts.”
Ruben is now so identified with the shirts that when he sang on the show last week wearing something else, host Ryan Seacrest questioned him about “the 205.”
Studdard said he was “mixing it up” but promised the 205 shirts would be back.
And for the results show the next night, he had a new one: The Jenkinses send Ruben a few new jerseys every week in his custom size, 8-10X.
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