And when i say a few i mean only a few, I remember well a year ago when mesh was new, there where only a few stores selling mesh and the quality was very different then what we have today, the SL fashion industry changed and moved into the future finally, leaving a lot of people lost and confused.

Today mesh is a huge part of our SL lifes stores embraced it, some going full mesh, some going partial, some embracing it in a whole no different way recently, with the coming of mesh boobs and appliers for them so that regular system clothes could literally embrace the mesh itself.

Over the year we´ve seen new brands arriving, old ones revamping themselves and a whole lot of new things, today i was a bit bored, i´ve been busy this holiday season like you all, but today i found i had a little time to sit down and organize my inventory, as usual i was looking at events stuff, moving things into folders, opening boxes, trying out things, and i usually look a mess when doing so, i wanted to take a pic of the new Bilo skin for this months Zodiac, I had no idea what hair to wear and luckily i had stopped at My Attic and grabbed this cute Ploom updo and i realized i was not only wearing some holiday colours but i was wearing some of my favourite brands, and over this year i gained so many favourite stores i decide to do a few more pics of random stuff from random events i have laying about.

Then suddenly i find my self putting up my idea of my favourite shops from the past year, so here are a few portraits and thoughts on the shops i´ve been wearing most often and blogging about.

First i will start with skins I´m here wearing a skin from Bilo, i didn´t feature first because of my special connection with the brand (If you look at my profile it´s writen there I am a CSR for the store, I would like to say i don´t get payed for it  in any way shape or form tho, I´ve just known Chandra for sometime now, and we´ve been close friends since then, I started blogging when she started entering events and I´ve seen her shop growing slowly over time in quality and effort, I now know a lot more than i ever did before about the creating process, how much sweat and tears go into it, be it mesh or a texture) This pic was just the starting point for this post.

Another skin brand that I´ve seen grow over time in a really suprising and impressive way is Essences another shops also featured in this Edition of Zodiac, that has also been in almost every big event for this past half month, with an increasingly quality, making me slowly grow closer and closer to their skins.

Wearing: 
Shape: mine 
Skin: Bilo - Esha (Zodiac)
Eyes: Izzie’s – Natural Mesh Eyes 
Eyelashes: Maxi Gossamer -  Eyelashes – Groomed
Hair: Ploom – Mosh (My Attic)
Cardigan: Bilo - Munira Cardigan

Now what do i mean with growing into a skin? Let me explain it better, some skins you go hmm i like this is different, and as you wear it more and more often with time, it growns on you, it´s not that use makes you appreciate something better, just that you slowly step out of your usual everyday look and start enjoying and appreciating different facets of yourself and your own shape.

I never change my facial features, I´ve stopped tweaking my shape about two years ago when i was finally happy with the final result, and this brand skin always looked different on me and i couldn´t pin it down why, I´m talking about Glam Affair a brand that always made me go hmm, but after a year of blogging has become my second most blogged brand and one of my favourites, not just for Fantasy but regular more fashionable pics, i collect most of the brands special events skins and i´m totally in love with them all.

Another skin I´ve had a similar relationship with was Pink Fuel, again one of the best SL brands that i always tought looked slighty off on me until i started grabbing and wearing not just here but also occasionally inwrold every special event edition.

Mind you i still wear mostly my favourite skin inworld which is my Milena by Mynerva i love it´s clean no makeup look more than anything else for my daily walkbouts, but i´m starting to realize i wear it less and less as my Skin folder grows bigger and my time for walkbouts grows smaller, and now i found out, well not really found out just wore a bit more a lot other skins like Belleza who´s Wynter Skin a few weeks ago for Fifty Linden Friday had me gasping for how beautiful it is.

My knees go weak with every Fallen Gods release and my inner Fantasy geek wants to fly around SL naked wearing nothing but skin and wings. I cry a little when i see every new My Ugly Dorothy skin out there or Mother Goose´s i wish would actually fit my shape, and i feel tempted to make a new one just for their skins. And i´m slowly growing fonder of the Skinnery,  and i´m atencipaticing Nomine´s new focus only on fantasy skins. And this only to name a few shops i didn´t picture here on this post and it´s follow up one.

Wearing: 
Shape: mine 
Skin: Essences – Caprice skin (Zodiac)
Eyes: Izzie’s – Natural Mesh Eyes 
Eyelashes: Maxi Gossamer -  Eyelashes – Groomed
Hair: Wasabi Pills - Amelie
Dress: Geometry – Winter (Gothmas by Gaslight)

At the end of a day i realized a skin says a lot about who we are and is one of the most important pieces of an avatar, but i think i also found out my avatar wants to be a lot of different things and some might not even make much sense to me at the time, but it will at some point, when i realize i feel good enough on my own skin to change it as often as i can and feel like.