How to say what you actually want.

The hardest part of shopping isn't choosing. It's saying what you want clearly enough that the right things come back. Most search boxes punish you for trying: type "cool jacket" and you get ten thousand jackets, sorted by nothing in particular.

You already know how to describe taste. You do it with friends all the time. The trick is that the description that works on a person also works on Couri, because Couri is built to read the way you actually talk, not to make you talk like a filter menu.

Say it the way you'd say it to a friend

A good ask has three things, loosely: an aesthetic, a constraint, and a context. You don't need all three, and you don't need to label them. You just need to be specific where it matters. Compare "something nice for work" with these:

"Techy Japanese streetwear under $300." An aesthetic and a budget. Couri reads the vibe and the ceiling, and stops showing you things you'd never buy.

"Rockstar chic, secondhand first." An aesthetic and a sourcing preference. Couri knows where to look and in what order: resale before full-price new.

"A winter coat that survives a NYC commute." A piece and a context. Couri reads "survives" and "commute" as warmth, durability, and ease, not just the word "coat."

Notice none of these mention a brand, a size chart, or a category tree. They're how a person describes what they're going for. That's the input Couri is designed for.

If you can say it to a friend, you can say it to Couri.

What the Style-Graph does with it

Behind the box is a Style-Graph: an ontology of aesthetics, each with its synonyms, its neighbors, and a map of which brands actually live in it. So "outdoorsy" reaches gorpcore even if you never said the word. "Quiet luxury" pulls toward the minimal, well-made, logo-free end. "Rockstar chic" knows leather, lean tailoring, and a certain looseness, and it knows the labels that do that well.

Your words get turned into real filters (budget, occasion, aesthetic, source) and run over real inventory. Then every result comes back ranked for you, with a plain-English reason attached: why this piece, why now, why it fits your body and your brief. You can read the reasoning, disagree with it, and steer.

It won't invent a product to satisfy your sentence. If nothing in stock matches, Couri tells you that instead of fabricating a result: the most useful thing a stylist can say is sometimes "not right now, but here's the closest real thing."

A small thing that helps: name the edges, not just the center. "Quiet luxury, but nothing beige" tells the graph what to chase and what to skip in one breath. "Streetwear, no logos" does the same. Couri reads the exclusion as carefully as the aesthetic, and the results narrow fast. You don't have to be polite about it. The more pointed your no, the better your yes.

Get sharper as you go

You don't have to nail the first ask. Start broad, react to what comes back, and tighten. "More relaxed." "Less black." "Closer to that second one, but secondhand." Every reaction teaches the graph a little more about your palette and your point of view, so the next round lands closer. Describing taste is a conversation, not a form. The more honestly you talk, the better it gets.