Most formalwear shops sort their stock by season. This one sorts by competition. The inventory at Glitz & Gowns splits first into Miss divisions and young girl divisions, then into gown, interview, and fun fashion — the categories a judge scores, in that order. Cupcake dresses have their own section. So do pageant shoes. The store calls itself Alabama’s premier pageant retailer and says it carries the largest selection of little girl pageant dresses in the Southeast.
That matters to a prom shopper for a practical reason: pageant is a year-round, fit-obsessed business, so the people helping with a prom dress in March spend the rest of the year putting competitors on a stage. The prom side of the floor is real, though. Verified brands here include Sherri Hill, Jovani, La Femme, Clarisse, Alyce Paris, Amarra, Colette, Dave & Johnny, and Tiffany Designs, alongside Ashley Lauren, Johnathan Kayne, and Ava Presley — three the store names among its pageant designers. It also says it is a certified Top 10 Prom retailer, which it describes as giving it exclusive styles no other store in the state can sell.
Where it actually is
Kent Stone Boulevard is a short, newer commercial street off Highway 119 — Montevallo Road — near the four-way signal at the Publix and Walgreens, with a Neighborhood Walmart, Wendy’s, and Starbucks in the same cluster. It is not a mall trip. Two other women’s boutiques sit on the same block, The Sassy Shopper at 224 and The Loft, so a dress hunt can turn into three stops without moving the car.
One caution: several designer locators and older directory listings still show the store at 8919 Highway 119, Suite 102, a previous address on the same corridor. The current address is 225 Kent Stone Blvd. Check your map app against that before you leave.
Thompson High School, three miles away on Warrior Parkway, is the only public high school in Alabaster City Schools and enrolled 2,132 students in grades 9–12 in 2023–24. That is a lot of juniors and seniors drawing from one shop in one town. Ask the staff directly about duplicates before you commit. Beyond Alabaster, Highway 119 runs southwest toward Montevallo, and I-65 puts this part of Shelby County within an easy run of Calera, Helena, Pelham, and the Birmingham suburbs to the north.
Policies worth knowing before the drive
- No dress rentals at all. The store points shoppers to its sale racks instead, many priced below a typical rental fee.
- All sales are final, in store and online. There is no return window.
- 90-day layaway on full-priced items.
- Walk-ins accepted during all normal hours year-round; appointments are added during prom and homecoming season, with personal styling appointments on Saturdays and Sundays.
- Open Sunday afternoons, 1 to 5 — unusual for an independent formalwear shop, and useful if weekends are the only time you can get everyone in the car.
- Tuxedo rentals through Jim’s Formal Wear, plus tuxedos for purchase.
- Plus-size prom is stocked as its own category; the store lists sizes from 0 to 30-plus.
- Its own recommendation is to start looking three to six months out, which puts prom shopping in late fall or early winter for an Alabama spring date.
The shop was opened in August 2011 by Missy Anthony, a longtime Alabaster resident with a fashion merchandising degree from Florida State and a background in retail management. The name most people around here still use for it, and the one on the phone listing, is Glitz & Gowns by Missy.