TJ’s puts pageant first in its own name, and that is the clearest signal of what the store does. The Itawamba County tourism office describes the shop as open by appointment only, with pageant dresses for girls and young ladies in both long and cocktail lengths, plus tuxedo rentals for men and boys. A store that carries children’s pageant sizes alongside teen gowns is working a longer calendar than a prom-only rack: crowning season and prom season overlap, and the same shop handles both.
The address is 401 Access Road, near the Spring Street intersection, in the part of Fulton that sits close to I-22. Appointment-only matters more here than it would in a mall. Nobody wanders in. Calling (662) 213-9734 first is the whole transaction, and third-party listings show afternoon hours Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, a shorter Friday, Saturday mornings, and Wednesday closed — worth confirming by phone rather than trusting a directory.
Who drives here
Fulton is the county seat of Itawamba County, a city of 4,542 people at the 2020 census, bordered on the west by the Tennessee–Tombigbee Waterway and counted inside the Tupelo micropolitan area. Itawamba Agricultural High School is out on Highway 25 South with roughly 530 students in grades 9 through 12. Mantachie and Tremont attendance centers each run K–12, so the same building sends a senior to prom and a second-grader to a pageant. Itawamba Community College’s main campus is in town as well, which puts a few thousand more students inside the same trade area.
The reach beyond the county line is a function of two roads. I-22/US 78 runs through southern Fulton at Exit 104, and Mississippi 25 carries traffic north and south through the eastern side of town. Since 2023, Mississippi 76 has connected MS 25 near Fulton straight east to the Alabama line at Red Bay, which shortens the trip for families on that side of the state.
| Coming from | Route | Distance to Fulton |
|---|---|---|
| Tupelo | I-22 east | 19 miles |
| Smithville | MS 25 north | 14 miles |
| Belmont | MS 25 south | 26 miles |
| Hamilton, Alabama | I-22 west | 25 miles |
The labels on the rack
Two brands list TJ’s on their official retailer locators: House of Wu and Tiffany Designs. Both are volume formalwear houses whose catalogs lean toward beading, glitter tulle and full ball-gown skirts — the construction that reads from the back of an auditorium. That is the useful thing to know before booking. This is not a shop built around minimalist slip dresses; it is stocked for stage lighting and for a judge’s table.
The tuxedo side is not an afterthought. The county listing for the store points to a Jim’s Formal Wear dealer page, which is the standard rental catalog most independent Southern formalwear shops order from. Handling the dress and the tux in one appointment is a real advantage for a family in Tremont or Mantachie that would otherwise make two separate trips.
Documentation on the store itself is thin. There is one public review online, from September 2024, left by a family who shopped several other stores both before and after their appointment at TJ’s and rated it five stars. That is the extent of the public record, so the rest is best settled on the phone: what sizes are in stock, whether they log dresses by school to avoid duplicates, and how far ahead pageant orders need to be placed. For a broader look at shops across Mississippi, see the state directory.