Check the address before leaving the driveway. Many directories, including the record behind this listing, still send shoppers to 1348 Java Lane, the retail strip at the entrance to Alamance Crossing across from Dick’s, BJ’s and Kohl’s. The store has moved. Its own site now lists 309 Huffman Mill Road, Suite 530, inside Holly Hill Mall — the enclosed mall at Huffman Mill Road and South Church Street in Alamance County. Same phone: (336) 584-8824.
The dresses were an accident. Wanda Shelton joined the staff at Merle Norman Cosmetics in Burlington in 1981 and was managing the business during her last year at Elon University. It went up for sale, and in 1986, at 23, she bought it — her parents, Ray and Carlene Shelton, took out the loan on her behalf because no bank would lend that much to someone that age without collateral. She paid it back inside ten years. Carlene came on as her manager.
Merle Norman held a large annual convention that called for cocktail dresses and long gowns, and Shelton could not find one anywhere. On the theory that other women had the same problem, she went to the Atlanta market, bought one gown for herself and twenty for the store, and sold through them in a couple of weeks. Then forty. Then a hundred, five hundred, a thousand. Eventually the cosmetics studio had to be remodeled to hold the inventory. That history explains the layout: this is still a Merle Norman studio, with skincare and makeup counters sitting alongside racks of formalwear, rather than a dress shop that added lipstick later.
Brands confirmed through the designers’ own retailer locators:
- Alyce Paris
- Clarisse
- Colette
- Faviana
- Jasz
- Jessica Angel
- La Femme
The store puts its own stock in the thousands and its size range at 000 to 24. Prom is the anchor season — there is a 2026 prom lookbook on the site, and separate homecoming and mother-of-the-bride sections — but the occasion list it keeps gowns for also includes pageants, quinceañeras, class reunions, cruises and galas, which is a practical detail if the trip is for something other than a spring dance. Shoes, jewelry and daywear are stocked as well.
Before the drive
Appointments are required, and the site asks for 48 hours to confirm a requested time. The posted schedule, which the site labels summer hours, is closed Sunday through Tuesday and 12:00 to 6:00 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday, with a 10:00 a.m. private-appointment slot listed Tuesday through Saturday. Hours at a store this seasonal shift when prom stock lands, so the phone call is worth making regardless.
Holly Hill Mall is an older enclosed center — it opened in 1969 and has gone by Burlington Square Mall and Colonial Mall along the way — and it currently runs around thirty stores and restaurants, anchored by Dunham’s Sports. Parking is reachable from Huffman Mill Road, South Church Street, Anne Elizabeth Drive and International Drive, so it is worth knowing which door puts you nearest Suite 530. The Publix-anchored Church Street Commons is next door if the trip needs a second stop.
Geographically, the store sits near the middle of its market rather than at the edge of it. Walter M. Williams and Hugh M. Cummings high schools are both Burlington schools; Western Alamance and Southern Alamance draw from the county around it; Graham High is in Graham, and Eastern Alamance sits out toward Hawfields and Mebane. Elon University, with more than 7,000 students, is a few minutes north. Interstates 40 and 85 run past the south side of town, which is what makes this a reasonable stop for families from Greensboro or the Mebane side of the county who would otherwise be shopping in a metro mall.