Two formal seasons run back to back on this side of the river, and a gown shop in Gretna works both of them. Carnival ball season in the New Orleans area opens on January 6 with the Twelfth Night Revelers and runs through Fat Tuesday, with more than a hundred balls a year, most of them invitation-only. Prom follows almost immediately. The six brands verified at Elite — Jovani, MNM Couture, Amarra, Clarisse, Tiffany Designs and House of Wu — cover both ends of that calendar, evening and ball gowns on one side and prom on the other.
Gretna is the parish seat and the second-largest city in Jefferson Parish, and the store is not really in downtown Gretna at all. It is inside Oakwood Center, the enclosed mall whose mailing address reads 197 Westbank Expressway but which sits geographically in Terrytown, main entrance facing Terry Parkway. Plenty of people in southeast Louisiana still say Oakwood Mall, and some of the signage agrees with them.
The trip there
Oakwood sits at the western foot of the Crescent City Connection, which is why the mall exists: it opened in 1966 on the development that followed the bridge. Roughly 907,000 square feet, about 4,600 parking spaces, anchored now by Dillard’s, JCPenney, Old Navy, Dick’s Sporting Goods and Shoe Dept. Encore, with the old Sears wing vacant. The mall was looted and set on fire on August 31, 2005, after Hurricane Katrina, with nearly 80 percent of the stores taking fire or water damage; it did not fully reopen until October 19, 2007. Everything since is the rebuilt version.
For a family in Terrytown, Gretna, Harvey, Marrero, Belle Chasse or Lafitte, this is a drive of minutes on the Westbank Expressway. Shopping the East Bank instead means the Crescent City Connection or the Huey P. Long Bridge, plus whatever the bridge is doing that afternoon.
Whose prom this is
Most of Gretna and all of Terrytown are zoned to West Jefferson High in Harvey, with parts of Gretna zoned to John Ehret in Marrero. Between them that is roughly 3,800 students. Add the smaller schools and the Catholic ones and the trade area gets clearer:
- West Jefferson High School, Harvey — about 1,700 students, the default high school for this ZIP
- John Ehret High School, Marrero — about 2,100 students, on Patriot Street off the expressway
- Thomas Jefferson High School, Gretna — a 6–12 parish magnet, around 540 students
- Young Audiences Charter High School, Gretna — roughly 640 students, about two miles from the mall
- Academy of Our Lady, Marrero — all-girls Catholic, formed in 2007 from the merger of Archbishop Blenk and Immaculata, and sitting at 5501 Westbank Expressway, the same road as the store
Helen Cox High in Harvey used to feed this area too. It was among the Jefferson Parish schools closed in the recent round of consolidations, so its students are now spread among the schools above.
Quinceañera and the rest of the year
Terrytown’s Hispanic population went from 2,206 people in 2000 to 7,012 in 2020, about 28 percent of the community; in the city of Gretna it is roughly 19 percent. Elite lists quinceañera dresses alongside prom, Mardi Gras ball, homecoming, graduation, wedding, flower girl and tuxedos on its own social page. That range is normal for an independent shop on the West Bank rather than a specialty — the same rack of formalwear has to serve a ball in February, a quinceañera in July and a prom in April.
One local note on Carnival: the parades mostly left. The krewes of Alla and Choctaw moved across the river in 2013 and 2014, leaving Gretna with the Krewe of Grela on Mardi Gras morning. The balls did not move, and neither did the dress requirement.
There is no website on file for Elite, and no verified hours, so the phone is the reliable channel: (504) 366-1151. Worth confirming before a drive whether the size and length you need is on the floor, since a mall suite carries what it carries.