Fashion & FAME

1/2 Day This half day tour combines two of the reasons people come to the Shoals -- world-class fashion and world-class music. Fashion designer Billy Reid has brought his flagship store to downtown Florence. Groups may make arrangements to tour the design house, as well as shopping for fashions at the store. Alabama Chanin is the headquarters and factory of internationally-recognized ecodesigner Natalie Chanin. Alabama Chanin offers a free public tour of its operations each day at 2 p.m. The tour includes a look at the studio and production areas and Building 14 machine sewing operation, as well as a history of the impressive company. 3614 Jackson Highway is the address of the original Muscle Shoals Sound Studios and is undergoing a restoration to become an attraction AND recording studio, similar to Sun Studio in Memphis. FAME (which stood for Florence Alabama Music Enterprises) was established in 1959 in Florence and has gone on to be the heartbeat of the Muscle Shoals Sound with entities including FAME Publishing, FAME Recording Studios, FAME Records and Muscle Shoals Records. FAME moved to Muscle Shoals in 1961. FAME has worked in the studio with some of the greatest artists in music history. Artists such as Aretha Franklin, Little Richard, Wilson Pickett, Etta James, Otis Redding, the Osmonds, Jerry Reed, Alabama, Mac Davis, the Gatlin Brothers, Bobbie Gentry and many others. In the last 50 years, FAME has been involved in recording or publishing records that have sold over 350 million copies world wide. And FAME is still a working studio today! The public tour, at 4 p.m. each day, takes visitors on a "backstage" tour of Studio A and B where they'll hear the history and endless stories about the recordings done. 1:15 p.m. – Tour Billy Reid 1:45 p.m. - Depart 2 p.m. – Tour Alabama Chanin 2:45 p.m. - Depart 3 p.m. – Tour 3614 Jackson Highway 3:45 p.m. – Depart 4 p.m. – Tour FAME 5 p.m. - Depart