Bringing Home the Birkin
My Life in Hot Pursuit of the
World’s Most Coveted Handbag
Michael Tonello
For Marilyn
Contents
Prologue
1 Barcelona on the Brain
2 The Spanish Indecision
3 Vespas and Vespers
4 Warding Off Trouble
5 Career Chop Suey
6 Horseshoes and Handkerchiefs
7 Silk Serendipity
8 Le Monde d’Wish Lists
9 The Pyrenees Passing
10 Living It Up Between the Birkin and Barcelona (“Michael’s Theme”)
11 Birkin Bankruptcy
12 Orange You Glad You Asked?
13 The Formula
14 Smoke and Mirrors
15 Road Trip Redux
16 How Do I Buy These?…Let Me Count the Ways…
17 Knight in Shining Croc
18 Ping-Pong I’ll Play, but Purse Penelope? No Way!
19 Parisian Purse Pipeline
20 Devilish Prada Pants and Heavenly Cuisine
Photographic Insert
21 Chilean Charades and Buenos Birkins
22 Blueberries and BlackBerries
23 A Roster of Reservations
24 A Yen for Hermès
25 Shop ’Til You Drop
26 Capricious Life
27 The Italian Way
28 In Hermès We Trust, Aston We Shall Receive
29 Creamsicles and Moonstones
30 There’s More Than One Way to Skin a Crocodile
31 Hermès, We Have a Hostage Situation
32 Mr. Sherlock Hermès
33 Fellini Film Noir
34 Found Money, Hidden Grace
35 A Birkin for Mom
Glossary of Hermès Terms
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
THE NAMES AND IDENTIFYING DETAILS OF SOME CHARACTERS IN THIS BOOK HAVE BEEN CHANGED TO SAFEGUARD THE INDIVIDUALS’ PRIVACY. ALL THE EVENTS ACTUALLY OCCURRED. I WAS NOT WEARING A WIRE WHEN I TRAVELED, SO SOME OF THE DIALOGUE IS A RE-CREATION.
Dear Sir:
Owing to serious problems with the supply of skin qualities necessary to the manufacture of your items as well as of production, we are really sorry to inform you that we have today no other options than canceling your orders, i.e.:
1 Fuchsia lizard Kelly clutch bag
1 White bull calf, 30cm, Birkin bag
1 Fuchsia goatskin, 36cm, Haut à Courroie bag.
With our most sincere apologies for not being able to give you satisfaction and thanking you in advance for your understanding, we remain,
Sincerely yours,
Serge de Bourge
Leather Department
Prologue
The sound of the fax machine drew me to the other side of the room. I saw the Hermès letterhead and scanned the letter peremptorily, then read it again, comprehension dawning. I thought it fairly unlikely that the largest luxury leather goods company in the world was having “serious problems” with its leather supply. Come on. That excuse was about as real as their two-year waiting list for Birkins. I had a sneaking suspicion that my globe-trotting and Hermès-hopping days were numbered.
The only “problem” Hermès had was with me—they must have come to the conclusion I was a reseller. (I preferred the term “leather liaison,” but why quibble?) It was pretty unbelievable to have arrived at this point, especially since five years ago I hadn’t known what a Birkin was. Since then, I had managed to buy them in such quantity that now I had been banished to the Birkin “blacklist.” I’d come into this by serendipity; encountered blackmail, bribery, and fraud, all in pursuit of a coveted handbag that the world had an insatiable appetite for. Millions of dollars later, maybe it was time to get off the Birkin roller coaster. Maybe I needed a new start.
Who could I call with my quandaries? Who did I know that truly understood how crazy this all had gotten? Well, Kate had been there from the beginning…
1
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 my company 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 Washing
ton 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.
Then there was the food. I feasted on shrimp the size of lobster, tomatoes sweet enough to eat like an apple, crusty Catalan bread hot from the oven, Torta del Cesar cheese (enjoyed best with a spoon), and countless pans of paella in every variety imaginable, all accompanied with sumptuous local wine from the world-famous Rioja region. For dessert, crema Catalana—a heady, velvety mixture of cream, eggs, and vanilla that made crème brûlée seem about as appealing as fruitcake. I was in fat-person heaven.
But it wasn’t just the food that gave the city its distinct flavor. Even the most mundane detail of day-to-day life had an artistic flair. I found myself transfixed by the most ordinary objects. Lamps were suddenly elevated to high art. Salt and pepper shakers were crafted with an attention to detail usually reserved for Fabergé eggs. Doorknobs stylishly adorned doors rather than simply opening them. It’s no wonder that Jean Paul Gaultier loves to visit Barcelona.
Admittedly, the city had fantastic flying buttresses and fragrant frying botifarra, but rave reviews in Architectural Digest and Zagat only go so far. I’d always thought of writing a guidebook that rated the one thing in a city that can make it or break it—the people. Let’s start with the French. Consider this:
“The charm of this petite Parisian bistro derives from its baby vegetable–laden pot-au-feu and year-round crackling hearth. It certainly isn’t from the locals who frequent here for lunchtime rendezvous. Unabashedly elitist and arrogant, they embody (and loudly embrace, much to other patrons’ dismay) all the worst qualities of the French. Still a solid choice, but bring lots of backbone—and your ear plugs.”
My review of Barcelona’s people would read a little differently:
“Perfect paella and plentiful pots of peonies make for positively passionate patrons of this new Mediterranean marvel. Even better, the clientele is largely indigenous. Visiting foodies will find themselves surrounded by the beautiful, charming, and amiable (but never overbearing) locals. Their Catalan conversations and lighthearted laughter pleasantly permeate every corner of this restaurant’s cathedral ceilings.”
All kidding aside, these were my kind of people. Once I breached the initial cautious but gracious reserve, I found them to be warm, kind, and generous to a fault. Plus, they were fun. Any place where the average Joe gets six weeks of vacation was a place after my own heart. The Spanish, unbeknownst to me, had for centuries embodied my personal mantra: Work to live, don’t live to work.
I didn’t speak the language, I knew no one, and my family was thousands of miles away. However, I had a sneaking suspicion that my white picket fence was destined to have a Spanish motif.
2
The Spanish Indecision
When I returned home, it was like The Wizard of Oz in reverse—my Technicolor trip was replaced by Boston’s black-and-white bleakness. One look at the piles of dirty snow beside the airport runway and I was frantically searching my carry-on for ruby red Spanish slippers. Driving back from Logan Airport to Provincetown through the “spring” sleet, I was a hair’s breadth from pulling a U-turn and hopping the next flight back to Barcelona. Only the realization that I had no clean underwear brought me back to my senses.
I thought my infatuation with Barcelona might pass, but instead, I became increasingly consumed with the idea of moving there.
I plotted it out in my journal:
REASONS TO MOVE
REASONS TO STAY IN PTOWN
Near-perfect weather
Friends
Awesome food
Too much shit to move
Beautiful city/people
Work
Always wanted to learn Spanish
Family
I fucking love it there!
Lease on house
Car
No one just up and moves to Spain
I started with the anti-Spain column. All right, the car was no big deal, and Kate could very easily find a new roomie. I’d miss the house, but I had never been one of those people defined by their front yard. The “too much shit” factor was more a reflection of my loathing of packing than it was a real obstacle. So, no biggie. The “friends” item was a little trickier—my friends were everything to me. But I had moved from New York to San Francisco to Boston to Ptown, and I still kept in touch with those who had mattered most. No, it was never the same when you weren’t right around the corner, but friendships, like relationships, were best if they weren’t built solely on convenience. Moving to Spain didn’t have to mean I’d lose anyone I was close to. And, really, that philosophy sort of transferred itself to the family angle too. My parents were exceptionally adventurous, and had made the journey from their home in Florida to wherever I was at least twice a year. I was sure that wouldn’t change, and I smiled as I pictured them pricing Spanish phrasebooks at the local Borders. My sister was also living in Florida, married, with a daughter, and we, like many adult siblings, had a pretty much holiday-based relationship at this point. So I guessed I wouldn’t pine away of loneliness in Spain.
I sat at the kitchen table, staring at the list. Then, like the madman I occasionally was, I started laughing. Who was I kidding? Lists? Pros and cons? I never should have watched those asinine Tony Robbins infomercials—I think they altered my brain chemistry. With the Michael Motivational Method, it all boiled down to five simple words: I fucking loved it there. Life was too short for list making and excuses. After all, millions of people live in Europe; how difficult could it be?
That evening I girded my loins and told Kate what I’d been pondering. We were sitting at The Mews, our favorite watering hole, and I think she assumed someone had slipped a Mickey in my margarita. After all, she was used to my incurable optimism and flights of fancy. What she didn’t know about was an afternoon phone call from my good friend Ward. A former designer at Tiffany, he’d recently taken the plunge and embarked on his own journey, launching a company that designed and manufactured high-end ladies’ jewels. This is where it all got a little weird—Ward needed a contact in Barcelona and offered me a position as middleman to the manufacturer (let me mention here I hadn’t spoken with Ward in months—talk about out of the blue). All right,
I’d be a jewelry salesman, but I’d unexpectedly cleared my greatest hurdle, getting a European work visa. To me, this was a fluke to end all flukes. But when I told Kate, instead of being floored by my good fortune, she simply laughed and calmly ordered another round. I guess when your brother was Beaker on The Muppet Show, weird becomes relative. I sipped my fresh margarita and dropped the subject. I’d tried.
It wasn’t like I was unhappy where I was. I had a house, and in Provincetown, a three-bedroom ranch like the one Kate and I shared was the equivalent of a castle. I guess it was only fitting—Kate was lovingly nicknamed “the Empress” by the locals. Her late brother, Richard, was an original Muppeteer and had owned an unpretentiously stellar beach-side home on the bluffs of North Truro (a scant few miles from Ptown). Everyone assumed his untimely death (he had been taken far too soon by AIDS) had made Kate a wealthy woman. In reality, all it had made Kate was heartbroken. But instead of wallowing in grief, Kate decided the best way to honor her brother was to carry on his legacy of kindness and generosity. She never let on to most people what his death had cost her—an empress always holds her head high. I was more than honored to play her court jester. It was this dynamic that made our life together in Ptown so exceptional.
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