Lillian Grace Boutique

The boutique carries a little girl’s name. Owner Katy Langston Combs named Lillian Grace after her young daughter, and she writes on the store’s about page that a shop for formal occasions and weddings had been a dream of hers for years. She already knew retail. Her team has sold boutique clothing in Rolla since 2015 at Red Door Gifts and Boutique, and Lillian Grace opened as Red Door’s sister store, a few doors down and across the street on North Pine.

The dress shop took over a historic downtown building and renovated it to fit eight fitting rooms and a bridal suite. Brides use the suite. Everything else in the building runs through formalwear: prom, homecoming, pageant gowns, military ball dresses, sorority formals and galas, plus suits and tuxedos for the men.

How the prom floor is stocked

Lillian Grace stocks sizes 000 through 24, but with a twist that changes how a shopper should approach the racks. The store keeps only one of each style on the floor, and every size range gets its own selection. A size 4 shopper and a size 18 shopper will see different gowns, not the same rack in different sizes. The store frames this as a way to keep each look unique.

The prom designers named on the site are a strong list for a downtown shop, and the homecoming and cocktail racks carry most of the same names in short styles.

Several lines, including Amarra, Alyce Paris, Ava Presley, Ellie Wilde, Jovani, Portia & Scarlett, Rachel Allan and Sydney’s Closet, can be ordered through the store’s online shop. The designer pages on the website do double duty. Each one shows samples of dresses the store has on order, so a shopper can preview what is coming before it reaches the floor, and the store’s own Lillian Grace Exclusives label turns up in both the prom and the homecoming sections.

Sydney’s Closet is the label to ask about at the top of the size range, since it is built for fuller figures. Because each size range carries its own set of gowns, a stylist can walk a shopper straight to the part of the floor that fits her.

Appointments are not required for formal dresses. The store strongly encourages them, though, especially in peak season, because a booking guarantees a fitting room and a stylist’s attention for the whole visit. Bridal is the one side of the business where an appointment is mandatory. Alterations are handled by local seamstresses outside the shop rather than in-house, so it pays to line up a fitting soon after the dress comes home.

The occasion list fits the town. Rolla High School is the home school for prom and homecoming, with St. James, Newburg and Salem high schools spread around Phelps and Dent counties. Missouri S&T borders downtown, and sorority events show up on the store’s list of occasions; Fort Leonard Wood lies west along I-44 in Pulaski County, and military balls appear on that same list. For the wider picture of shops across south-central Missouri, the state page on this site groups them by region.

Rolla has one public high school, so prom night puts a whole class at a single dance. That makes one policy outweigh the rest, and the store puts it right on its homepage.

At Lillian Grace, we keep a registery of every dress as to not sell the same dress to the same event, meaning your style is always unique to your event!

Three things Rolla families ask Lillian Grace

Will someone else at my prom have my Lillian Grace dress?

No one else at that dance can buy it here. The shop logs every sale by event and turns away a second buyer for the same style at the same dance.

Can I order a prom dress from Lillian Grace online?

Yes, for some designers. The store runs an online shop for selected lines, and dresses not listed there can be seen in person.

Can a prom date rent or buy a tux at Lillian Grace?

Both. Rentals come from the Jim’s Formalwear and Paul Morrell catalogs, and the store also sells suits and tuxedos from its elite line for anyone who would rather own one. Sizing and ordering happen in the store.