Retailers Give Themselves a Makeover as Millennials Follow Own Beat

Alison LePard, a 19-year-old college sophomore from Wellesley, Mass., says that when she shops for clothes and accessories, her goal is a look that's uniquely hers. So she does a lot of mixing and matching. "I don't blindly follow what they put out," LePard said of store displays. "I don't want to wear just one brand. I don't want to be a stereotype." She's hardly alone. Recent surveys have found that members of the U.S. millennial generation — the roughly 80 million Americans born between 1977 and 2000 — pride themselves on their individuality, and shop accordingly.