Old friends Buffini and Newman had been talking about collaborating on a project for years when the idea came to them— a sort of Orange Is The New Black, but in 18th-century London. "We were looking for a show that would have a huge female cast with parts for women of all ages, shapes, and sizes, and it seems that this world was perfect for that," Newman said. "The more we looked into it, the more we researched, the more we explored the world, we discovered that some fantastic stories and women who survived in a patriarchal society, who lived outside of polite society, who really wrote their own rules, and the ones who thrived — really thrived — they became huge celebrities. And of course then you go to the other end of the spectrum, where you get street girls where life is a lot tougher, and we just thought it was a really, really interesting world. We wanted to do a show which was very much from their point of view."