Michael Tonello

Michael Tonello is the author of Bringing Home the Birkin: My Life in Hot Pursuit of the World’s Most Coveted Handbag (Morrow), a whirlwind account of the years he spent globetrotting and gaming the Hermès system to buy and resell hundreds of these impossible-to-get handbags on eBay. He is a writer and columnist for The Huffington Post, where his weekly column on style, fashion, and trends appears on the “Living Now” page. At his speaking engagements, he shares his fascinating experiences with a wide array of audiences, but particularly with the people who formerly were his biggest clients: the world’s elite socialites and fashionistas. He is the perfect speaker for anyone interested in uncovering the veil of the fashion world, or learning more about how to turn an expertise in eBay into a career. His quick-witted (and often self-directed) sense of humor is tempered well by his unmistakably effective “everyman” brand of business acumen. Tonello has more than just the ability to entertain: he has an entrepreneurial success story, one that would interest anyone from a corporate CEO to a second-year business school student.

Tonello grew up in Massachusetts, amidst the windswept dunes and ever-encroaching tourism of Cape Cod. He attended New York City’s Fordham University for almost a full day, before beginning an ambitious field study of New York socialites in their native nightlife habitats. A few months later, armed with a vast array of discotheque expertise, (but no longer possessed of parental financial support), he made his way out to San Francisco. The West coast would be his home for five years, and the start of his career in hair and makeup. Eventually co-founding a successful company, an innovative advertising collaborative called TEAM, Tonello returned to his native Massachusetts, settling into the artists’ colony of Provincetown.

A chance job assignment in Spain would prove fateful and Tonello went from P-townie to expatriate in a flash, resettling in Barcelona, which is where Bringing Home the Birkin begins. Pressed to find a profession that didn’t necessitate working papers, he turned in his make-up bag for a laptop. Quickly finding his niche as an eBay luxury reseller, he soon after began his lucrative relationship with all things Hermès.

After more than 20 years, the iconic Birkin remains the ultimate status symbol and probably the most coveted accessory of all time. Tonello currently resides in Barcelona, Spain.

Bringing Home the Birkin: Hot Pursuit of the World’s Most Coveted Handbag

Uncovering the Veil of the Fashion World

Mastering eBay for Fun or Profit