[close] An insider's hilarious, whirlwind account of his years spent globetrotting the Hermes system to buy and resell hundreds of impossible-to-get handbags on the internet.
After more than twenty years, the iconic Birkin bag by Hermes remains the ultimate status symbol. It is so exclusive that even the rich, famous, and desperate must put their names on a two-year waiting list to get their hands on one. Enter Michael Tonello, an American expatriate living in Barcelona. Strapped for cash, he stumbles on the almost magical secret to buying Birkins off the waiting list, and virtually overnight becomes on of eBay's most successful entrepreneurs - a Robin Hood to the rich, delivering genuine bags on demand to eager customers. For five years, he traveled around the world, stepping inside Hermes stores on six continents and walking out with millions of dollars' worth of Birkins.
In Bringing Home the Birkin, Tonello recalls the events that led to his accidental career and shares the forays that took him around the globe, into the lives of celebrities and poseurs, and sometimes into danger, from enduring a "hostage handbag" situation to eluding Hermes's watchful eyes. A story of serendipity, fraud, fashion, blackmail, bribery, insatiable
greed, heartbreak, and romance, Bringing Home the Birkin is a must read for fans of Sophie Kinsella's Shopaholic series, Sex and the City, and Page Six.