Raised in liberal, artistic family, Ivan Parati has fond memories of his grandfather, a violinist and painter, driving from Cremona through Giuseppe Verdi’s hills bargaining truffles and other delicacies for small paintings. “Truffles were a luxury at the time and to see his paintings changing hands for such exotic delicacies showed me that people cared about what others created with their hands,” he says.

Parati would often observe his grandfather paint and was mesmerised with the stories of his travels to the Middle East. He was still a child when his grandfather died but the curiosity his tales had kindled in Parati’s soul lived on.

Parati spent his teenage years learning to draw and play the violin. He even tried his hand at airbrushing his friends’ Vespa. Drawn to the creative world, he wanted to explore all its facets.

A stint at the Milan Polytechnic offered him insight into architecture, product design, communication and interiors. “It was then that I realised it was possible to make people’s life better with design, art and engineering.”

Parati also learnt surviving criticism. “Design school taught me to anticipate critique — design after all is based on people and they will have an opinion about it. It applies to your personal life as well. If you can master taking the best parts of the critique and using to better your work or yourself, you achieve you goals faster.”

Before graduating, Parati travelled to China to work as an interior designer for a short period and returned to the Mecca of design to a product design studio of classical traditions — both experiences helping him pave his own path in the creative world.

A subsequent move to Dubai didn’t go as planned because his grand ambitions came crashing down as he found himself trapped in the wrong job just a few months before the economic crisis hit the Middle East. After a dark period, salvation came in the form of a teaching position at Ajman University of Science and Technology. Life was rosy again as he married the lovely Emanuela Corti, whom he first met in China, had a beautiful daughter Viola and birthed a design collective “Caravan” along with Corti.

“As a teacher I encourage my students to participate in design competitions because the experience and exposure they gain [there] is immeasurable. The same applies to design professionals like me and my wife,” he says about his decision to participate in the Van Cleef & Arpels Middle East Emergent Artist Prize 2015, presented in collaboration with Tashkeel and Design Days Dubai earlier this year. The competition offered the designer an opportunity to realise his creative vision exactly as he had envisaged.

Parati’s award-winning work, “The Tile Table” is based on an intuitive, adaptive design concept where the piece communicates with the needs of the owner — its modular identity based on an underlying grid.

“I see the table as a point of encounter among cultures. To me, it is symbolic of humanity where the [individual] elements cannot survive in isolation.” Held together by magnets, the subtle narrative hinting at mankind’s fragile fabric was not lost to the jury.

“Winning this award in Dubai makes it all the more special,” says Parati as he recalls his grandfather’s Middle Eastern tales and the hardships he faced in the region. “To attend L’ECOLE Van Cleef & Arpels in Paris is a rare opportunity, one that will no doubt shape my future!”

Shortly after this win, Parati and Corti beat more than a thousand entries from the world over to bag the Grand Prix at the Lexus Design Awards 2015 held at the Milan Design Week last month. Their award-winning SenseWear garment prototype — a collection that ranges from pressure-treated jackets to fragrant scarves — is designed to play with the wearer’s senses. There is indeed no stopping this dynamic design duo.

Pratyush Sarup edits the design site designcarrot.net. You can follow the site on twitter @DesignCarrot.