The idea came from Sarah Dillistone who left TOWIE and set up MIC. She got in touch with Hugo who had been trying to put a reality show together for a while:
Hugo: "Made in Chelsea was a show I really wanted to make for a long time. Spencer and I had a lot of friends who worked on The Hills, which was on MTV. And I absolutely loved the show… loved the concept"
Alex: And how much of Made In Chelsea was originally your idea and that of your core crew of friends?
Hugo: It’s original concept when Spencer, I, and a guy called Ollie Horner conceived the show. We were 21 and were running a promotion company (when it didn’t seem like the horrible scene it appears now) and so we were like let’s put together some cast and do this. Spencer and I put together a great cast: Rosie Fortescue, Caggie, Millie, myself, Spencer and few others.
Alex: This is was three years before the show came out?
Hugo: Yes, this is when I was 21. The show never got made at that time, but three years later, it was made with a remarkably similar cast. Before that, I was sitting at home watching The Only Way is Essex, which had just come on – and I was absolutely mortified that somebody had beaten me to it.
That was December 12th 2010. And then about a week later, I got a call from Sarah Dillistone, the producer of The Only Way Is Essex, and she was like ‘I am leaving that show and I am going to Channel 4 to make Made In Chelsea, do you want to get involved?’
And I sat down with all the producers and I was like ‘here are the changes that have to be made, you have to have Spencer there.’ And about the week after that, we were filming our first episode. Amazing how these things work out.
urbantimes.co/2014/04/hugo-taylor-interview/