I use Google Image Search Google Lens¹ a lot to help folks here and on /r/findfashion ² , and I have a fair amount of success, so I thought I'd share my approach so that others can benefit.

• Try a Reverse Image Search first! - sometimes someone posts a picture from Instagram or other social media. The search results you can get on Google Reverse Image Search, TinEye, Yandex, and Bing will often have clues in the filenames about where the image came from, including things like hb_annoushka or strappy_cage_bra or honeymoon_set, which gives you a great place to start with search terms. If it's on Instagram, Pinterest, or Twitter, sometimes the poster will even tag the designer - that's 90% of the puzzle solved right away. In particular, give Yandex a try if you're striking out elsewhere... their "similar images" seem to use a very different approach from the US sites. (But when you search Yandex, try not to have the model's face in the photo, because they also seem to use facial matching and will show you every lingerie photo that model has ever appeared in if they can match her face.)
  
• Try to name it - a big part of your success starts with knowing what it's called. That means learning the language of the fashion world. Is it racerback, halter neck, high neck? Is it an underwire bra, or a bralette, or a padded bra? A demi cup or balconette? Is it made of lace, mesh, tulle, or latex? Does it look like you're just hunting for a bra or suspender, or is it a two- or three-piece set? The terms are mushy and you might have to try a few of them.
• Search for Images - fire up the Googles and type in your terms. (Bare Necessities carries lots of wholesale brands and has a great search engine as well.) For this search I tried "white lace" balconette set, because the bra & panties looked like they were a matched set and the cups just barely come up to the nipples, but are reinforced. ("Demi" was going to be my second search.) That got me these results, and the Zulily and PetiteCherry results both looked perfect. PetiteCherry will actually sell it, so that's the result I went with. Remember to use quotation marks to tell Google "I really mean it" -- if there's a term you're certain should be included, like zipper, find the most useful version of it and put it in quotes: "zip" will find zipper, but not always the other way around.
  
• Filter by color or other features - for the color "white", it's worse to use color filtering because lots of colored lingerie is photographed on a white background, but for any other image search, you can go to Tools>Color on the search results page and choose a color family to filter down to. This can really help when you're looking for a non-standard lingerie color like green or yellow, in order to weed out all the black, white, and red sets. The color tool finds images where the main color in the image is the color you chose.
  
• Scroll through lots of results - This is the part that sucks! You need to scroll down a lot, especially if you're looking for a style that's pretty common³ . Take some time to understand what the search engine is showing you and why, especially if nothing in the results looks anything like what you're looking for.
  
• Adjust your strategy - Look at your results and if you see something that's almost but not quite what you want, see how that vendor describes the item. Once you've scrolled through a page of results, see what you notice about the ones that are coming up -- maybe you thought you were looking for "keyhole" but "open front" is more accurate? Or maybe it's only sort of open front, and "ladder front" or "criss cross" describes the open front of the bra. Sometimes I have to go through two or three cycles of this to even get onto the right track, and I can tell right away that scrolling through my results is going to be useless.
  
• Find a Seller - Lots of times you'll end up with a dozen no-name resellers in Asia (or a no-brand reseller on Amazon) selling the article, which can mean that the item you're looking for is "box lingerie", inexpensive mass-produced lingerie that's sold wholesale to lots of retailers. If you find an image of the item on a no-name site, and it's sold out, try using Reverse Image Search on their promo image... since these items are inexpensive, all the vendors who sell a given article tend to use the exact same photo of the item on their website, and a Reverse Image Search can lead you to other vendors who didn't describe it as well (or who used a non-English language to describe it on their website!). Shein and Romwe both have a bad habit of naming their box lingerie badly, but at least they re-use the promo images.
  

Some good terms you can use to divide up the search pool are:

• Article - bra, bralette, corset, bustier, bodysuit, slingshot, harness, stockings, garter belt, suspender, panties, set
  
• Style - shelf, balconette, demi, full coverage, sleeves, thong, tanga, high waist, high neck, over-the-knee, thigh-high, knee-high
  
• Material - lace, eyelash lace, leaver's lace, floral lace, tulle, vinyl/PVC, leather, cotton, soft, mesh, fishnet
  
• Features - keyhole, padded, unlined, open-front, ouvert, peekaboo, crotchless, open-cup, choker, underwire, buttons, lace-up, side-tie, criss-cross, ladder-front, snaps, zippers, O-rings, D-rings, buckles, ruffles, garters
  
• Adjectives - embroidered, sheer, kawaii, goth, boho/bohemian, flowy, strappy
  

Adjectives can be really tough, because you have to guess what word the manufacturer wanted to use to describe it. "Sexy" is almost always a dead end, because everything they sell is meant to be sexy! However, "stripper" and "slutty" can narrow things down.

<sup>1. RIP Google Image Search. Google Lens kind of sucks ass and has content filters now; but Yandex is the current champ. Bing is great for clothing and some lingerie, but falls on its face if there's any hint of nipple or nudity. TinEye is of limited utility for finding anything except drop-shipped items
2. What's in it for me? I do a lot of online research looking for hard-to-find things in my day job, and this is a fun way to stay sharp, help people out, and get to look at women in sexy outfits while I do it.
3. Good luck finding the particular strappy black elastic harness you want these days! Everyone sells three different shapes, there's no good description for them, and they all look basically the same, and lots of places are just reselling one of the same twenty designs that Dreamgirl and the other wholesalers came up with this year.</sup>

Welcome everyone, in light of a recent influx of people who do not understand what the purpose of this subreddit is for, we’ve made a handy rules post.

• This is not a porn subreddit. There’s no kink shaming here, there are a myriad of places on reddit to engage with that kind of material with like-minded folk. (like r/Lingerie for example). However, r/FindLingerie is not one of them.

• No Self-promotion. Self-promotion, any shop promotion, promotion of somebody else, views & karma farming are not allowed. Such posts will be considered as spam and removed, the user will be permanently banned. If you need advice about certain brands or shops, check r/LingerieAddiction subreddit; your post will not get removed, but you might get more opinions there.

• Upload a picture of the lingerie to imgur or reddit. No other sources will be allowed. This means no posting/reposting porn clips. Take a screenshot of the lingerie and post that instead. We are here to help in identifying lingerie pieces, not to watch porn.

• Use the spoiler tag for nudity. Pretty self explanatory. For anything that’s raunchy or containing nudity (genitals and close up shots of breasts), use the spoiler tag.

• Clearly indicate you are looking for the lingerie itself. Another self explanatory one. Posts with titles like “Pretty” will be removed. (Again, combating spam and people who would like the subreddit to be something it is not.)

• Don’t be a creep. Useless, pervey, or creepy comments and unsolicited direct messages to users will be removed and dealt with (via a ban). If someone harasses you or leaves such a comment, please report it.

There’s a lot of guys, gals, and nb folk who are already following these rules and helping keep the community a lovely place. This post serves as a reference and as an important framing document for the subreddit. If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to give us a shout.