While we’ve been tracking what Downton Abbey writer, Julian Fellowes, is up to next, one can’t help but wonder what’s inside ITV1’s bag of tricks that will, hopefully, build upon the success of the series that has taken the world by storm?

Easy. A simple 10-part drama profiling the place that, in 2010, won the distinction of being named the best department store in the world, Selfridges. Mr. Selfridge will trace the life of the flamboyant and visionary American entrepreneur, Harry Gordon Selfridge, who created the famed London department store Selfridge’s. Set in London in 1909 at a time when ‘upstairs’ women were enjoying a new sense of freedom and based on the book Shopping, Seduction And Mr Selfridge by Lindy Woodhead, the series will focus on the hidden moments surrounding the history of women through fashion, cosmetics, technology and domestic affairs.

Created by writer Andrew Davies (Brideshead Revisted, Bridget Jones’ Diary), Mr. Selfridge is set in London in 1909 and will be produced in-house thus avoiding the Downton Abbey scenario where the series was produced by NBC Universal’s Carnival Films.

According to Deadline.com, casting has just begun and the 10-part series will begin production in April of this year with a UK target transmission date of mid-late 2013 and following, hopefully, on PBS in the States.