Poca is small even by West Virginia standards. The 2020 census counted 874 people in a town of three quarters of a square mile, sitting where the Pocatalico River meets the Kanawha — and the town takes its name from the Pocatalico. Formalwear stores usually turn up in malls or on four-lane commercial strips. This one is at 165 Main Street, in a Putnam County town whose high school enrolls about half as many students as the town has residents.
That high school matters here, because it is the store’s home crowd. Poca High School sits at 1 Dot Way, plays as the Dots in red and grey, counted 432 students in 2023–24, serves the easternmost part of Putnam County, and counts Nitro High School as its rival. Putnam County Schools runs five high schools in all, so Winfield, Hurricane and Buffalo students are in county-driving range too, as are Sissonville families over the Kanawha County line.
What’s on the racks
Three prom labels list LulaBelle’s on their own retailer locators: Amarra, Ashley Lauren and Ava Presley. Amarra states that it designs prom and formal gowns and sells them only through authorized boutiques, which is the practical reason a store this size carries names a shopper would otherwise associate with a much bigger showroom. Faviana also keeps a Lula Belle’s page on its site for Poca.
The store’s own Facebook listing goes further, describing itself as a small-town boutique for homecoming, winter formal and prom, and naming Alyce Paris, Primavera, Portia & Scarlett, Sophia Thomas, Sydney’s Closet and Juliet alongside the labels above. That same listing says layaway is offered — worth knowing in advance, since it changes when a gown has to be paid for rather than whether it can be.
Call before driving over
This is not a walk-in-any-Saturday operation, especially outside dress season. The store’s Instagram describes it as dresses and aesthetics in Poca and has run June hours as Monday through Saturday, by appointment only, and its Facebook page has posted that it is available by appointment over the following two months. One phone number, (681) 833-8800, covers both halves of the business: LulaBelle’s Beauty Bar is listed at 165 Main Street Unit 1 on the same line, with online booking and evening appointments. Hair-and-makeup logistics and the dress are, in other words, the same errand at the same address.
The nearest alternatives are the formal and bridal shops up the Kanawha in Charleston and South Charleston, and Barbie’s Formal in Milton, out toward Huntington, which carries some of the same lines. Poca’s advantage over both is the length of the trip and, for a Dot, the fact that the shop is in town.