Rome, Italy CNN  — 

Paris may be the home of high fashion, but it’s in Rome that the legendary house of Valentino finds its heart.

Instead of looking to monuments and ruins for inspiration, the house’s creative directors, Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli, look to a little-known world of opera house attics and subterranean vaults; ancient libraries and centuries-old fencing clubs.

“It’s not the famous postcard that you normally have of Rome,” Chiuri told CNN Style in the lead up to their Autumn/Winter 2015 haute couture show in Paris. “There’s something more intimate, and that’s the portrait we like. We also think couture is more intimate because there’s a relationship between the client and the atelier. It’s one of a kind and the best limited edition you could have.”

To emphasize the close link between the brand and the Eternal City, Chiuri and Piccioli gave CNN Style an exclusive tour of their Rome. While many of their favorite sites are historic, the designers say they aren’t interested in reinterpreting the past over and over again, no matter how stunning it may be.

As Piccioli puts it: “We believe the past is in our present to build the future.”