Bringing Home the Birkin: My Life in Hot Pursuit of the World's Most Coveted Handbag

by Michael Tonello Narrated by Not Yet Available

Overview

“[A] memoir of . . . madcap travels, triumphs and humiliations. [Tonello] peels back the layers of pretension at the eminent design house. . . . Anyone who's ever stepped into a luxury boutique and felt the sting of the doorman's disapproval will find a hero in Tonello.” -Miami Herald

The hilarious, whirlwind account ofan insider'syears spent globe-trotting in search of the handbagcalled “a better investment than gold”: the Birkin.With a life that reads like a heist novel, Michael Tonello reveals the secretto bagging this legendary purse, coveted by celebrities and status-seekers around the world.

For more than forty years, the Hermès Birkin bag has been the iconic symbol of fashion, luxury, and wealth. Though the bag is often seen dangling from the arms of celebrities, there is a fabled waiting list of more than two years to buy one from Hermès, and the average fashionista has a better chance of climbing Mount Everest in Prada pumps than of possessing one of these coveted carryalls. Unless, of course, she happens to know Michael Tonello . . .

Michael's newfound career started with an impulsive move to Barcelona, a vanished job assignment, no work visa, and a Hermès scarf sold on eBay to generate some quick cash. But soon the resourceful Michael discovered the truth about the waiting list and figured out the secret to getting Hermès to part with one of these precious bags. Millions of dollars worth of Birkins later, Michael had become one of eBay's most successful entrepreneurs-and a Robin Hood to thousands of desperate rich women.

With down-to-earth wit, Michael chronicles the unusual ventures that took him to nearly every continent, from eBay to Paris auction house and into the lives of celebrities and poseurs. Flirting with danger, Michael recounts the heady rush of hand delivering his first big score to famed songwriter Carole Bayer Sager in Paris; how he had to hire thugs to rescue a bag that one of his “shoppers” held for ransom; and the story of the Oscar-worthy performances that allowed him to snag “reserved” bags from other, less dogged Birkin seekers.

Whether he's relating his wining and dining, buying and selling, dodging and weaving, laughing and crying, or schmoozing andstammering, Michael is a master raconteur who weaves togethertales of hunting Birkins in the world's most posh locales, memoriesof meals that would make any gastronome salivate, anecdotes ofobsessed collectors with insatiable desires, and sweetly intimate stories about his family, friends, and finding true love. The result isa memoir that is distinctive, fun, page-turning, and as addictive asits namesake.

Editorial Reviews

First, a one-stop tutorial on the title: Hermès Birkin handbags set the standard for female accessories. Prices for this French high fashion item begin at $7,500; reputedly, there is a two-year waiting list for prospective buyers. Michael Tonello's Bringing Home the Birkin chronicles his hunt for not one prize Birkin but a whole multitude. Gaining access to Hermès's elite hierarchy, this resourceful wheeler-dealer learns seldom-revealed secrets about the coveted accessory. Short of a Birkin, the best fashion tote around.

From the Publisher

“Part comedy, part history, part treasure hunt, Michael Tonello’s memoir is a romping sociological inquiry. If you’re like me, you’ll be transfixed and wanting more!” - Tim Gunn
“A deliciously quick nonfiction read.” - Charlotte Observer
“Funny, thrilling, chock-full of great cocktail-party stories told with the flair of a natural raconteur.” - "The Year in Books 2008," Chicago Center for Literature and Photography
“The fashion world is about to be handed its own Da Vinci Code with Bringing Home the Birkin.” - Maclean's
“The perfect, fluffy and fun beach read.” - glamour.com
“A witty and engaging retrospective on [Tonello’s] long career traipsing the globe as a purveyor of the Birkin bag.” - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
“[A] sunny memoir. . . . The prose is vivid, the tone lighthearted. Mr. Tonello comes off as the fantasy gay best friend immortalized in contemporary women’s fiction: sassy, plucky, optimistic—oh, and he can get you a Birkin.” - Wall Street Journal
“[A] memoir of . . . madcap travels, triumphs and humiliations. [Tonello] peels back the layers of pretension at the eminent design house. . . . Anyone who’s ever stepped into a luxury boutique and felt the sting of the doorman’s disapproval will find a hero in Tonello.” - Miami Herald
“Hermès’ worst nightmare.” - New York Daily News
“I devoured, and adored Bringing Home the Birkin, the story of how one man turned the fashionable set’s obsession with Hermès’ signature handbag into a handsome, globe-trotting career.” - Jennifer Weiner, Author of Good in Bed and In Her Shoes
“This summer’s most adorable chick-lit book. . . . It’s smart. It’s fizzy. It’s amusingly snarky, with attitude to burn. ” - New York Times
“The one-step, one-stop shop guide to buying a Birkin.” - Huffington Post
“The one-step, one-stop shop guide to buying a Birkin.” - Arianna Huffington, Huffington Post
“ [Tonello] reveals the key to scoring that Holy Grail of handbags in a clever memoir.” - Boston Herald
“In his peppy, addictive memoir . . . [Tonello] details the comical lengths to which he’s gone to snag hundreds of Birkins that he then sells (with a steep mark-up) on eBay.” - moderntonic.com
“Funny, whip-smart. . . . Both a hilarious raid on fashion’s strongholds and a memoir that satisfies like a novel. Fashion die-hards, and many others, will be delighted from beginning to end.” - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Boston Globe bestseller
“Fascinating. . . . The sassy and resourceful Tonello built a very lucrative eBay resale business from his apartment, specializing in Hermès scarves and the French luxury purveyor’s highly desired Birkin bag. It’s hard not to be swept up in his delightful one-man Birkin Brigades.” - Minneapolis Star Tribune
“Fascinating…. It’s hard not to be swept up in his delightful one-man Birkin Brigades.” - Minneapolis Star Tribune
“A deliciously addictive true tale of continent-hopping, celebrity-schmoozing, and a crazy-like-a-fox quest for that Hermès “it” bag, the Birkin. Haute read, indeed.” - straight.com
“Tonello recounts the strange and serendipitous tale of how he went from cleaning out his closet to being one of the busiest Internet resellers of Birkin bags in the world.” - The Globe and Mail

Product Details

BN ID:	2940201238506
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	08/25/2026
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

Bringing Home the Birkin

Chapter One

Barcelona on the Brain

I've always thought the use of a ringing phone to symbolize the onset of great personal change was a cheap plot device, and a gross oversimplification of the various factors that inspire human metamorphosis. However, now I know better: sometimes you really can trace it all back to a phone call.

In my particular case, that life-changing phone call came early one wintry Cape Cod day—early enough that my roommate, Kate, and I were still cheerfully ensconced in our morning routine of Peet's coffee, PJs, and Rosie O'Donnell. Neither the caller nor the subject matter was by any means unusual—it was the Boston-based agency that represented me, giving me my newest assignment. A weeklong hair and makeup job for IBM in Barcelona, it had the allure of an escape from the drab and drear of mid-March Provincetown. The call certainly felt routine at the time, but we don't always know our Rubicon when it rings . . .

At least workwise, things weren't so shabby. I had a career that people who didn't know better might consider glamorous. As a beautician who specialized in commercial photography, I had spent most of the last decade trigger-happy with a can of hairspray and a powder puff. And somehow, along my merry way, I had also cofounded a company. Named Team, it was an agency that represented artists who worked, in one capacity or another, in the photography and advertising industries. The concept was both convenience and strength in numbers. Normally, an advertising exec needed to make about half a dozen phone calls to pull together a photo shoot. What mycompany did was turn those six calls into one. Makeup artists, hairstylists, wardrobe stylists, location scouts, production managers, food stylists—we had it all under one roof. But good as it had been to me, my initial euphoria at being part of the fashion industry I had always worshipped as spectator was starting to wane. I had learned that celebrities were just people with name recognition, and photo shoots were as tedious as board meetings, once you had been to hundreds of them. Ten years of crafting updos and vanquishing shiny noses had driven me to uncharacteristic self-analysis. Was this really how I wanted to spend the rest of my life? Maybe not, but for now I knew one thing: I was going to Spain.

I loved traveling for work, eagerly snapping up what the industry called "go-away jobs." Nomadic by nature, I took the adage "home is where the heart is" literally—a hotel room morphed into home as long as I was in it (with the added bonuses of crisp sheets, fresh towels, and chocolates on my pillow). But lately I found myself becoming more jaded by my globe-trotting. Not because of the silly things you always heard those bridge-club biddies bemoaning in the airport—it wasn't lost luggage or the lack of a proper bagel that had me down. I didn't mind the calculus of currency conversion or the etymology of exotic entrées. No, it wasn't the inconvenience inherent to travel that was burning me out. It was boredom. I had increasingly noticed a sinister sameness about each of these foreign cities. Before my very eyes, every place was turning into every place else. I fervently hoped that Barcelona would prove to be the exception.

I sighed with disappointment and slumped against the hot vinyl seat of the taxi. Other than the flamenco music on the radio and the blinding glare of the Catalan sun, so far Barcelona felt about as foreign to me as Boston. Tacky billboards advertising electronics and cheap hotels flashed by my window at an alarming rate. Was there any place left in the world that didn't look like one giant strip mall? Maybe it was time for me to settle down. Maybe I needed the white picket fence and the Weber grill after all.

A mere five minutes later, my cynicism forgotten, I was as mesmerized by the view as a midwesterner crossing the George Washington Bridge into Manhattan. I didn't know which way to look. To my left loomed the impressive bulk of the 1992 Olympic Stadium, capped off by a towering white spire that was an unlikely mating of futuristic space station and computer-generated sculpture. To my right, the Mediterranean. I was dazzled not only by the turquoise shimmer of the sea but by the hundreds of boats lining the docks. Luxury cruise ships, privately owned yachts, behemoth tankers, modest sailboats—somehow, seeing one of the world's biggest ports was far more impressive than reading about it in Fodor's. Suddenly, I was as excited as a little kid on his first field trip.

But it wasn't until we left the highway and entered the city's perimeter that I truly fell under its spell. None of my extensive jet-setting had prepared me for Barcelona's unique urban landscape—palm trees edged the narrow streets, ornate buildings leaned companionably against each other, and laundry adorned nearly every balcony. The architecture spanned centuries of design—gothic intermingled with modernist, contemporary coalesced with classic. It could have been jarring to the senses, but as I would later learn, Barcelona had a way of turning the incongruous into the harmonious. It looked like the European city I had always dreamed of but, of late, had despaired of ever finding. I was captivated.

My eight-hour days of grooming models and painting faces put a dent in what little time I had to prowl the city. However, even with the constraints of the IBM gig cutting into my tourist time, I still sampled enough of the Barcelona lifestyle to grow ever more enamored. My first instincts about the city's physical charm had been wrong—it was far more spectacular than I originally supposed. With a population of nearly two million spread out over sixty square miles, Barcelona is segmented into dozens of neighborhoods, each possessed of its own particular charm. I was hard-pressed to find an undesirable location; the place was a real estate agent's wet dream.

Bringing Home the Birkin. Copyright © by Michael Tonello. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.