From Bags to Riches (2)

So I'm more than halfway through Michael Tonello's book 'Bringing Home the Birkin' and I'm enjoying the ride.

Michael describes his evolution from a top Hermes scarf reseller to his discovery of the Birkin handbag.

I still don't understand how he manages to make a profit on this: he buys the extraordinarily expensive bags at official Hermes stores all over Europe, and then puts them on the Internet for sale, where they often get picked up before he even gets to the auction phase. Are there really that many people who don't mind paying inflated prices - i.e. more than the store price Michael got?

But then, the author himself was amazed at the buying power and hunger for Birkin bags he found with some of his customers. One of them had a reselling web site of her own at www.createursdeluxe.com. So she had to pay Michael's high prices and then add her own profit margin to that again, and still find buyers. Crazy, isn't it?

The writer also presents a list with drawings of the main types of Hermes shop employees, helping you to find out if you too can circumvent what Michael calls the fictional waiting list for Birkins.

To get deeper into the mood of the book, I went to visit a couple of Hermes stores in Taiwan. The biggest one must be the shop at the front of the new Sogo BR4, which has lots of orange scarves, bags, clothes, beach apparel and many small objects. I also passed by the other Taipei Hermes, in the basement of the Grand Formosa Regent Hotel, where I took the snap you see above. Top department stores in the cities of Taichung and Kaohsiung also host Hermes shops.

By the way: I didn't buy anything, because right now, I don't have a budget that allows for investment in the French company's products. And before I plunge into the career of a reseller, I'll have to research more about the opportunities. And maybe ask Michael Tonello for advice first.

From Bags to Riches

You're a U.S. hairdresser and you arrive in Spain without a work permit. So what do you do? Of course, you go online and start selling things.

That's the story within the pages of one of the few books I saw and became enthusiastic about without having read anything about it before hand.

The author is Michael Tonello and the long title of his book is "Bringing Home the Birkin: My life in hot pursuit of the world's most coveted handbag."

After finding it at Page One inside the world's tallest building, I first returned home to read reviews as well as take a look at the author's web site, www.bringinghomethebirkin.com. Unlike him, I know what a Birkin is: an outrageously expensive handbag from French fashion house Hermes.

There's supposed to be a waiting list to buy the things. Not so, says Michael Tonello. With big charm and big spending, he managed to unearth Birkin bags in stores all over the place. In fact, what makes the book so exciting is that he turned this shopping habit into a fulltime profitable job. When a customer on eBay requested a Birkin bag, he would go all over the place to find one, bring it back, and make a nice profit. That's what I don't understand: if he managed to buy a bag and then sell it at a markup, how come his clients couldn't?

To know that, I guess you have to read the book, which I will be doing over the next few days. By the way, when I returned to Page One today, there was only one copy of the book left. And I bought it. So maybe I can start a business reselling Michael Tonello books for profit on the Internet!

Sense and Sensuality

Would this kind of picture be possible in a Taiwanese magazine?

I don't think so, because the authorities in most Asian countries confuse naked women with sex. In Asia, the beauty of the human form is still too readily confused with sex and pornography. Unfortunately, that is also the case with advertising. Here in Taiwan, you often find scantily clad ladies in full ads for motels, suggesting sex, lust and extramarital affairs.

Not so in Europe, where this picture is from. It was published in the May edition of the Belgian women's magazine Feeling, which includes reports on predictable topics like cuisine, fashion and design. The picture on the right is one in a series on how to change the size of a woman's breasts, belly and legs without relying on surgery.

All in all, a healthy topic. Nothing to do with sex. That is the practice in Europe. If you're talking about the human body, about cosmetics, baths and spas, then there's nothing wrong with showing off the body. The same magazine also featured an ad for that well-known brand of cosmetics, Dove, showing off a middle-aged - some would say elderly - woman in the nude. Again, nothing wrong in Europe, but highly unlikely in Asia and Taiwan.

I wish we would grow up and stop treating the human body as something dirty that has to be hidden, but let it be and see it as one of the world's greatest creations. More sense and sensuality please.

By Shadrilla Kems for S2S