Critical Role's Laura Bailey Teases A "Grittier" Mighty Nein Series & New Vox Machina Clothing Line

Summary Critical Role’s fashion show, Creators in Fashion, is a new integrated live and virtual experience showcasing clothing lines from various creators.

The evolution of Critical Role merchandise has led to the creation of clothing lines inspired by characters from their campaigns, offering fans a chance to express their passion for the show through fashion.

Laura Bailey, one of the founders and stars of Critical Role, reflects on the growth of their merchandise from shipping the first 100 t-shirts to now preparing for a fashion show, showcasing their journey in the fashion industry.

Critical Role began as a group of "nerdy ass voice actor" friends sitting around a table playing Dungeons & Dragons together once a week and has grown into an entertainment empire. This growth is thanks to the devoted fans who not only watch the series but show their love for Critical Role through the clothes they wear. Now, Critical Role has the chance to show off its clothing lines in an all-new exciting way with the upcoming fashion show, Creators in Fashion. An integrated live, virtual, and interactive experience, this event will showcase clothing lines from Critical Role, ZHC, Cassey Ho, Yes Theory, and more via Style Theory. The Creators in Fashion show will co-stream on Style Theory & Game Theory on April 25 at 2:30 pm PST / 5:30 pm EST.

Critical Role now has multiple companies under its umbrella, including Darrington Press, their game publishing company, Metapigeon LLC, their production company, and Scanlan Shorthalt Music, their record label. Critical Role also has partnerships with Dark Horse Comics and Penguin Random House, with which they have released novels and comic books. With multiple shows under their banner, including the titular main campaign, Candela Obscura, based on their original TTRPG, as well as the animated series The Legend of Vox Machina and the upcoming Mighty Nein.

Related All 3 Critical Role Campaigns Explained: Differences, Connections & Crossovers The campaigns of Critical Role span several years in Exandria as they connect the adventures of Vox Machina, the Mighty Nein, and Bells Hells.

Screen Rant interviewed one of the founders and stars of Critical Role, Laura Bailey about their involvement with Creators in Fashion. She also discussed the evolution of Critical Role's merchandise and fashion lines teasing a new Vox Machina-inspired line. Bailey also teased that Mighty Nein will be darker than The Legend of Vox Machina and reflected on how running Critical Role's merchandising arm has impacted the way she approaches character design aesthetically.

Laura Bailey Never Imagined Showcasing Critical Role Clothing On The Runway

Creators in Fashion gives Critical Role a platform to show off their clothing like never before with their own team modeling it on the runway. Bailey explained how Critical Role became involved in Creators in Fashion, which is being presented by Style Theorist. Bailey also explained that while they jumped at the chance because of the exciting opportunity the fan-forward style of the show is perfectly in line with how Critical Role has always designed their merchandise.

Laura Bailey: I think they just approached us and we heard about the opportunity. We were absolutely stoked to join. Style Theory is such an awesome channel, and the fact that we get to showcase our merchandise on a runway, which has never been done before is really nerve-racking and exciting at the same time. Getting to join other audiences, because I think a lot of the other creators involved and Style Theory's audience is not necessarily the same as Critical Role's audience. So it's awesome to get to see other people in that environment. It really just felt like a really fun opportunity. If I'm being real. When it was presented as something we jumped at the chance. I never imagined when we started Critical Role or when I started working on the merchandise for Critical Role that we would ever come to a place that we would get to style models and our own wonderful employees and cast that are walking the runway on this event, that we would get to showcase our clothing in that way. It's so new and exciting, and I think it just shows how much as a brand we've kind of grown since the beginning. What's driven our design from the beginning has been fan interaction. I've been very present on Twitter and people have reached out to me going, "Oh, you know what I would love? I would love to see a Jester dresser. I would love to see clothing based on the characters." And to be able to reciprocate that and feed what people are feeding us has been really wonderful. And so, to have that interaction on the day is going to be so different and so cool. I don't even know what to expect fully, but I'm kind of beside myself. The people walking on our side are our employees and Taliesin is walking. He's so great at this stuff, I don't know how he always looks so wonderful doing whatever he does. He's also incredibly photogenic. Anytime we take pictures, I'm always like, Dang it, Taliesin. But yeah, I would be so nervous walking. They asked if I wanted to walk, and I was like, Are you kidding? No, I'm going to talk. I'm bad at that too, but at least I won't trip and fall on my face.

The Journey From Shipping The First 100 T-Shirts To Getting A Fashion Show

Critical Role's first venture into clothing began with a batch of t-shirts that were sold out before the cast had finished announcing they were on sale. Now, they consistently have new products launching an entire clothing line inspired by their characters and the world of Exandria. Bailey reflected on that journey from the cast shipping the first batch of t-shirts to now showing off their latest clothing on a runway.

Laura Bailey: Can you believe it? When we first did that, we only made 100 because we didn't think anybody was going to buy it. And thank God we only did a hundred because when it sold out, then we didn't think about the fact that we'd have to ship it. So all of us were just sitting in me and Travis' dining room hand addressing the envelopes and sending them out. So the whole cast did the shipping process on that first shirt, and now we've got, I think, six warehouses across the world that send out merchandise. So it's crazy that it's grown so much in that amount of time. But at the same time, it's still about the fans, it's still about what they want from us and what we're comfortable making as well. Now we have a fashion show. What? I'm just like, How can we style the clothes, but then also put something else on it? We have so much stuff, and I think each creator is getting 10-15 minutes to do their walks. So whatever looks you can fit into that amount of time, around 10, 11 looks, something like that. It's amazing how really head to toe we could style each model. It's a matter of, do we want to put everything on each person or just showcase one item at a time? So it's a fun process right now of figuring out what the models are going to look like. I don't understand it, I think is basically what it comes down to. We're still just a bunch of goobers playing pretend. Now we just play pretend a lot more than we used to. Even when we first broke down the roles within the company, Travis was going to be CEO, Marisha was going to be production queen, art daddy was Liam, and I would do merchandise. It was just because that's what we said, "Oh, that sounds fun." It's a matter of playing pretend and faking your way through it until you actually understand what you're doing, and then it's just your life. So I would've never thought that's where we would be right now, and now it feels normal because it's what we're doing.

The Evolution Of Critical Role's Merchandise: "We Wanted To Branch Out"

Critical Role began with t-shirts some sporting their logo or name while others tap into inside jokes enjoyed by the cast and fans alike. Now they've branched out beyond t-shirts which includes sweatshirts, dresses, polos, jackets, hats, sweaters, pajamas, and more. The newest clothing lines even take inspiration from the characters and world of Exandria.

Laura Bailey: When we first started, we were creating basically T-shirts and stuff that we would wear. I loved the idea of the inside joke. I loved that it didn't necessarily scream Critical Role, some of our merchandise, but if people watched the show, then they would get the joke. I loved that if you were out in public, you could meet people with similar interests because it would kind of show, you would know if they watched the show based on if they got the joke or not. And then as our audience grew and we wanted to branch out from just doing T-shirts and hoodies, which are still awesome and make up 80% of my wardrobe, the idea of getting to do ready-to-wear clothing that are kind of more in universe, if that makes sense. Yeah, so basing designs on what the characters would wear in our world was just a really fun concept. And to create that and go, but what would our audience wear in conjunction with that? It would be easy to create clothing items that Yasha would wear, but it has to also coincide with what our fan base and our audience is going to want to put on their body. So it can't just all be bandages and stuff like that. So that's why we created our Yasha hoodie with a slash mark. So it still is reminiscent of her, while being something that you can wear in your day-to-day life.

Bailey famously announces new merchandise at the start of streams, often with hilarious results. Critters will need to tune into Creators in Fashion not just for the amazing clothing that will be shown off, but for Bailey's announcement of each piece as the models walk the runway.

Laura Bailey: The terror that I feel at the start of every episode when I'm going to be showing something. I don't know. You would think I would be better at it after all this time, and it just all goes out the window. I am no better at it than I was 10 years ago. The announcements are so much more organized now, it's right there. I still am just terrible. I don't know. On the day at Creators in Fashion, I think I'm going to be talking about the items, which it's going to just, I got to go prepared. I got to go prepared, man.

She also shed light on the infamous moment when the post-production team added a graphic of a t-shirt Bailey had intended to show off when announcing the new product. While the moment was hilarious on stream it also highlighted just how much she and the rest of the cast love the merchandise they create.

Laura Bailey: Because I was wearing the shirt and I forgot to bring it in. This is the problem. They stopped letting me take stuff home now, because I'll take it home and then I'll just add it into my wardrobe, and I'll just wear it. And then they're like, "Can you bring this item to show on the stream?" And I'm like, "I don't know where it is. It's somewhere."

While Critical Role has delved into many different corners with their merchandise including clothing outside of t-shirts, plushies, blankets, and dice there are still avenues that Bailey would love to break into. This includes housewares inspired by inside jokes from the series.

Laura Bailey: I like the idea of doing housewares, just because I also really love decorating my house. And like I said, I always make stuff that I want. So yeah, that would be great, is to be able to branch out into that world eventually. But it's a whole other factory situation that I don't, we'd probably just license a lot of it for now. But we made a joke earlier about doing chairs, since that seems to be a running gag in our campaigns, so maybe we'll create some chairs eventually. Murder chairs. Evil Critical Role furniture.

Laura Bailey Teases The Fashion Of Exandria & New Vox Machina Line

Fashion can be a major part of identity for many people allowing them to express their identity through how they present themselves to the world. As Critical Role branches out they offer fans more ways to incorporate their passion for this story and world into their own style. Bailey shared how fans' reception to the merchandise and their love for Critical Role has touched her.

Laura Bailey: It's been so wonderful. I've always been somebody who likes to express myself through clothing. Even depending day to day, my fashion choices will change to showcase what I'm feeling like that day, you know? So to be able to provide that for somebody else. Especially, we go to conventions, which we didn't get to do for so long because of COVID and everything, to start going to conventions again and see people in person wearing the clothing that we've been making. I want to cry so often when we're there and just seeing how people are taking those items and making it their own. I see so many Molly shirts. I think it's one of our most popular items, and everybody looks so awesome in it. Everybody has styled it so well, and it makes me want to keep doing it. It makes me want to keep creating unique clothing items that people will appreciate. Because what's great about doing lines based on the characters is that you do get to appeal to a wider base of audience members. So you can take the Caleb blazer and wear it to work, or you can wear one of our polos to work and get to still feel like you have your own interests while you're doing something that is not for yourself, sometimes.

Bailey explained how Bells Hells inspired clothing based on the characters with Laudna's Shirt Dress, the Ashton Greymoore Jacket, the Fresh Cut Grass Cardigan, and more. This has inspired clothing lines inspired by the Mighty Nein and soon a Vox Machina line. The clothes aren't simply shirts or sweatshirts with the characters on them, but instead clothing that the characters themselves might wear. The Beauty of Exandria line and the lines inspired by the campaigns are an opportunity for Critical Role to bring a piece of the world they built to their fans letting them show off their passion for the show and step into the world to some degree.

Laura Bailey: I think that's what makes it so different is that all of the characters have such strong personalities and such strong looks compared to each other. So we've been able to, if you'd have told me five years ago that we were going to be making a denim shirt, I'd be like, Okay, I don't see that happening. But it made so much sense for Imogen to have that kind of almost a Western influence, but we wanted to do it in a way that was still, you could style it so it doesn't just have to be on a farm or at a rodeo. Yeah, I think Bells Hells is just, everybody is so unique in their personalities, so we wanted to showcase that. And what's really fun is that we've been able to go back recently and look at Vox Machina again because really when we were doing Vox Machina, that was not something that was even feasible at the time, was to do cut and sew items based on the characters. And so now we get to go back and we're working on a Vox Machina line as well. Keyleth has been really wonderful. That will be coming later. You'll get to see. She's just really, really cool. You know the hardest one? This is a reverse of your question. The hardest one was FCG because I was like, What do we do? What do do with that guy? But it was great. We ended up going with this Mr. Rogers vibe for it, which is why we did that cozy cardigan for them. I think it ended up working really well. There were a lot of different iterations of what that cozy cardigan would look like, but we wanted it different enough from the Caduceus cardigan that it would still feel fresh. What's been really fun is seeing which items maybe speak more to our audiences, which ones sell faster, and then being able to take that same line and doing it again in a different color. So we have some really awesome things coming out. I'm like, don't want to spoil anything too much. We have some stuff coming out that's based on previous designs that are in a new palette, which is really cool. There are so many aspects of Exandria and Matt's storytelling, and now Aabria's storytelling and Brennan's storytelling that I want to be able to explore, and our merchandising team wants to be able to see tangibly. So to be able to do something like the Beauty of Exandria collection and our giant tapestry blanket. It was just so amazing to show that Calamity moment. Regardless it's just really beautiful. We had the Motion of Exandria, so when we originally started creating these lines, it was kind of like, we want to think about items for each character, and what do they mean? So how are we going to fit them into the Beauty of Exandria collection, the Wilds of Exandria, the Motion of Exandria, the Dark Academia of Exandria and whatnot. And then we kind of just decided which characters would fit into those vibes, and it ended up becoming Mighty Nein collection. And then we're like, what are collections anyway? We're just going to release what we want to release and call it what we want to call it. But we are doing a Vox Machina collection, which I'm super stoked about.

Laura Bailey Reflects On How Critical Role Merchandise Has Influenced Her Character Design

Character design and merchandise design both allow Bailey to tap into her creativity outside acting. Elements of merchandise design, especially clothing, are a key part of the character design. The clothes a player chooses for their character is how they present themselves to the other players and the world for potentially years. Bailey is able to take this element into the real world especially when designing clothes based on the characters from the campaigns.

Laura Bailey: I hadn't thought about that. That's a really good point. It does kind of scratch that same itch. Character creation is always one of the things that I enjoy the most, is putting a look together for what you're going to be wearing for however many hours or days or weeks or years. So yeah, it does have that same appeal. I think I really like seeing our characters come to life in a new way with the designs that we're doing. I really enjoy seeing our cast members' reactions. I'll get a sample in of something like the bomber jacket, the Orym bomber jacket that I was able to show to Liam, and to see his reaction to seeing that was, it just brings joy to my heart to get to see that. And I hope, from the get-go our show has always been, we're a bunch of geeks having fun together, and I feel like our audience is the same as us. Our audience, it's a bunch of friends hanging out, so hopefully if we like something, then the audience will like it as well.

Although the potential for merchandise is not at the forefront of Bailey's mind when designing her characters, the clothing that Jester and now Imogen wear has become more intricate since her involvement in the merchandising corner of Critical Role has grown. Inspired by her own growing appreciation and experience with fashion and clothing design. However, Bailey did reveal that she does contemplate how the dice based on her character will look when she is designing them, which shouldn't come as a surprise to most fans.

Laura Bailey: Gosh, you would think that I would have thought more about it when I'm doing character creation. That's a good point. I should do that. I should think about what's going to affect the clothing items we're going to release. I do think about like, Oh, what is this going to look like in dice form as we're doing character creation now. But I don't go down the line yet and think about what is the clothing item going to be. It's funny because some characters jump out a bit more, right? Ashton, I feel like they're easy to come up with clothing items for. I have so many things that I can imagine for Ashton. But Imogen is hard because I can't release suspenders. I guess I could, but would they sell? There's always this line of we could create something really niche, but how many people are going to want to put that on their body? I don't know. Maybe it'll surprise me. That's what we did with the Jester dress. I didn't know how many were going to want to buy a cute dress with little bees on it and flowers, but I was shocked, it did really well. I was so happy that it did. That meant we got to do future dresses. So then we got to do the Lana dress too, which also did really well for us. So it's exciting. Do the niche thing. [The character's clothing] has gotten more involved as I've gotten more involved in creating clothing. I think more in terms of how is this going to flow? How does this piece together? Maybe that's why with Imogen, I've been very into creating this sheer, flowy clothing item that is always part of her design. I think when we were originally doing Vox Machina, I would think in terms of color. So I'd always want Vex to have that through line of teal for her clothing. Yeah, that's the first time I've realized it, but you're right.

Mighty Nein Will Be "Grittier" & Explore "Darker Themes Than The Legend Of Vox Machina

The collaboration needed to create and design the merchandise carries over into the animation process as well, with the cast giving input on the character design. However, decisions must be made with the reality of animation kept in mind while staying as true to the character and actors' imagination as possible.

Laura Bailey: We did go back and forth a bit on character designs and stuff like that of what piece, what item is it about that character that can't be lost when it's translated? I think our artist, Phil, he did such an amazing job of really capturing those characters in such a beautiful way. I know we're in the process of doing Mighty Nein right now in the animated world. Molly, this is always a Taliesin issue, because he always goes overboard, because he understands cosplay, so he would always create characters based on what will be fun for Cosplayers. He wants them to have a lot of fun with it. So Molly's coat is beautiful, but you cannot animate Molly's coat with all those designs. So it's like, Where's the line there? What can we do? We did the same with Percy's coat. It was very, very ornate in Taliesin's mind, and it had to be like, Bruh, it's got to be kind of like a blue coat. So there's give and take there.

Although details about Mighty Nein are being kept under wraps, Screen Rant has been able to learn a few details. O'Brien teased "an entirely different kind of story" from The Legend of Vox Machina and recently he explained that "Mighty Nein is more of a collection of broken losers, weaved into sort of a spycraft novel in a lot of ways." Bailey continued to keep things close to the vest but did promise a grittier story.

Laura Bailey: I feel like Mighty Nein in some aspects was far grittier with the storytelling, even on stream. And so we are getting to explore kind of those darker themes with Mighty Nein than we were able to, or even that it didn't warrant it necessarily with Vox Machina in the same way. The stuff I've seen coming back from Mighty Nein, I'm very, very excited about it.

Bailey's Mighty Nein character Jester famously used the message spell to mixed success often rambling which quickly used up her twenty-word limit. During the interview, we joked that while recording the writers should give Bailey a basic idea of what she was saying, but leave the actual dialogue to her when Jester is sending a message and cut it off at twenty words.

Laura Bailey: And just cut it off? [laughs] Oh my gosh, what a way to do it. That would be amazing. Let the writers know. Don't write, don't write it. You know what though? When we get in the room, when we get in the recording booth, it kind of ends up that way anyway. Everybody just goes on tangents.

While Critical Role has grown to include many more ways to share their story with the world, one avenue that they have yet to achieve is video games. However, they've made it clear that they hope to bring Critical Role to that medium, which would be similar to animation in allowing them to bring their creation to a medium they are intimately familiar with both as voice actors and avid video game fans.

Laura Bailey: We keep talking about how much fun it would be to do video games. I would love that just because that's where we started, you know? Video games and cartoons. We did the cartoons. Video games are very hard to make, but darn it, I would love to see our characters and be able to control them in a different way. That'd be so cool.

About Critical Role

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What began in 2012 as a bunch of friends playing RPGs in each other's living rooms has evolved into a multi-platform entertainment sensation. Now in its third campaign storyline, the show features seven popular voiceover actors diving into epic adventures, led by veteran game master Matthew Mercer.

Creators in Fashion, which will feature Critical Role, will be co-streamed live on Style Theory & Game Theory with the pre-show beginning at 2:30 pm PST / 5:30 pm EST and the main event kicking off at 3:00 pm PST / 6 pm EST.

Source: Screen Rant Plus