Asked what role the surrounding environment has played in her work, Dowie hesitates. “You can’t help but be influenced by living in New Zealand,” she says. “However, I know of designers here who are much more informed by the sea and that sort of thing, and I find I’m more influenced by people who lived before me. My grandparents, for example. They moved to New Zealand from Britain and they brought beautiful antique furniture with them. I take a lot of inspiration from things like that—from the past, from history. I love the idea of reinvention.”