What’s Changed at Sonia Therese Designs

Meaningful, small batch māori-inspired jewellery for everyday wear

I distinctly remember the day I began a course called How to Have a Successful Jewellery Brand.

The message from day one was clear. To keep your audience interested, you needed to constantly tempt them with new designs and new collections. Every collection should include entry level, supporter and aspirational pieces. Ideally, there would be at least 20 different designs in each collection.

And you should release a brand new collection every season.

Four collections a year.

It was 2019. I was finding my feet as a jewellery designer, fresh from my first trade show, with more than 30 stockists and growing international exposure. From the outside, it looked like everything was tracking perfectly.

So I dove in. I created seasonal collections eagerly, keen to prove that I was serious about this business, this industry, and my own creativity.

Back home, I was invited to take part in a joint opening show with four other fashion designers for New Zealand Fashion Week’s 20th Showcase. It was postponed and eventually cancelled, but there were still journalists in my studio, photoshoots, live TV interviews, magazines, and more stockists.

On paper, it was success.

But behind all of that, it was just me in my little caravan studio, making new collections, photographing work, marketing, supplying shops, filling orders, creating commissions, and trying to keep up with the next thing.

The pressure I put on myself was enormous. I kept telling myself, “This is what you do if you are serious about being a jewellery designer.”

Somewhere along the way, if I am honest, I began to wonder whether it was actually right for me.

I remember crouching behind a display cabinet in New York, in a rare lull between stylist appointments during Fashion Week, and crying my eyes out. For about 20 seconds. Then I pulled myself together and greeted the next stylist and their models as though nothing had happened.

When New Zealand Fashion Week was cancelled, I went down to the beach on a cold, cloudy, stormy day and screamed into the wind.

Things were unravelling, but I did not want to see it.

My values were being tested. I like to think my ancestors were pushing me to stand up for myself, though it took me a while to listen. Covid took its toll on the economy and on my business, but I was still carrying the belief that four new collections a year, with 20 or more pieces in each, was the bare minimum expected of me.

It was not sustainable.

I had no freedom. I could not give any design the attention it deserved because, as soon as one piece was made and placed online, I was already expected to be working on the next one.

By 2025, I was preparing to launch my new Ātua Collection for Matariki. The pieces were delicious, and I was excited. Then, just like that, I crashed.

The launch date came and went. I postponed it again, and again. By September, I announced I was taking a sabbatical and exploring a new direction, wild jewellery, a workshop series, all the things.

And you know what? I did not do any of it.

I had reached the wall. I was in severe burnout.

This is not a story about failure. It is a story about evolution and learning.

For years, I kept pivoting and reshaping myself around who I thought I was supposed to be, as a jeweller, a business owner, and a creative. The question I had not asked was, “Who am I when no one is watching?”

In the year since taking that break, I have discovered how deeply freedom, sustainability, and meaning matter to me.

I care about my environment, and that includes my family, my friends, and my community. If we do not approach our environment from a perspective of sustainability, we have nothing meaningful to offer our descendants.

I am a storyteller. I always have been. I look for the story in all sorts of things, seeing patterns and connections where others might see randomness. I am a systems thinker.

And freedom, ahh, freedom. That is essential for me.

What I know now is that freedom does not come from constantly chasing more. It comes from structure, discipline, and making choices that are actually aligned with who I am. My world became small because I had placed my whole identity into what I made for other people. Every time I entered my studio, I left a big part of myself at the door.

I do not do that anymore.

I have stepped away from the endless cycle of more, new, and more again. I am embracing small batch pieces, slower creation, and the time to truly see and express the meaning in everything I make.

I create everyday pieces of wearable art and storytelling.

My first question is no longer, “What will everyone else like?” It is, “What do I like?”

If you like it too, cool. And if you do not, that is also cool.

The point is not to be liked at any cost. The point is to be true, and to keep growing and evolving.

Not everything has been reinvented, though. Some things that are true today were also true ten years ago.

I am inspired by my Māori heritage, and I seek to understand myself through the lens of te ao Māori, the Māori worldview, every time I create. I love telling stories that connect us, stories of our shared humanity that bring us closer together.

I believe my ancestors are alive in the mountains, the rivers, and the birds. I believe we must remember our place and our role as kaitiaki, guardians, at all times.

I believe in the power of art to change the world.

I know it can, because it has changed mine.

Maybe it will change yours too.

Browse the current collection to discover small batch māori-inspired jewellery designed to be worn, gifted, and connected with every day.