I hit on an idea recently that helped me turn up some new types of clothing items that I didn’t know existed before. It doesn’t sound like much, but it’s been a great way to expand my style search.

First, describe an item that you like. I picked “silver ring.” Now, if I typed that into Google I would find a thousand silver rings. It’s far too vague to be really helpful. The trick is to then brainstorm other words that describe the same thing. I actually looked up “silver” in the thesaurus. I know, geeky, but I love a good thesaurus, what can I say.

Next, type the most promising of the synonyms into Google. “Titanium” is where I really hit the jackpot. Since it isn’t a word I use every day, or ever, the thesaurus look up was crucial because it gave me access to words that weren’t already in my brain.

When I used “titanium” in my search I came up with a category of jewelry that I’d never known existed, and turns out it is right up my alley.

One of the titanium rings I turned up using my brilliant thesaurus-aided search technique.

I was feeling a bit road-blocked on my style journey because I couldn’t find any new places to look for things and this idea gave me a push, so I thought I’d share it with you in case you need a push too.