If you're in the fashion business, it doesn't get any bigger than New York Fashion Week.
This year a Christchurch jewellery designer has been hand-picked to show her line, an opportunity she never thought she'd get during a pandemic.
Working from her bedroom workshop, Sonia Therese is lovingly crafting her creations destined for New York Fashion Week.
"I was lost for words, I was... I think the technical term was gobsmacked," she told Newshub.
While the news came as a shock, it's not hard to see why Therese was handpicked as one of 10 international designers to showcase her work.
"The jewellery is embedded and infused with soul, and it's infused with storytelling, it's all about the story," she said.
Most of the materials used in her designs are recycled, including a pendant piece which was created specifically for New York Fashion Week.
The pendant contains pieces of wood from a friend's house demolished in the Christchurch earthquakes almost 10 years ago.
This year, Therese knows it'll be a fashion week unlike any other - COVID-19 cases in New York continue to rise, and Times Square is a hub for Black Lives Matter protests.
But despite it all, Therese knew she had to take the rare opportunity.
"It's really exciting to go, but that's tempered with what's going on in the world at the moment," she said.
"[I'm] very mindful of being safe, of being a really good representative of New Zealand on the global stage, and also for my whanau and my iwi and making sure that I represent well."
From a bedroom in the quake-hit suburb of Parklands in Christchurch to New York Fashion week is a big jump - no matter who's telling the story.
