From Critical Role To Catwalk: Laura Bailey Talks Creators In Fashion

When people think of Critical Role and fashion, it often comes with a discussion about passionate fans sharing their amazing cosplays of Dungeons & Dragons characters from the show. Merchandise is a big economic driver of any media and this show is no different. Walk into a friendly local game store or the halls of a gaming convention and there will be plenty of shirts, dice bags and other items featuring the logo or Matt Mercer’s famous Dungeon Master catchphrase “How do you want to this?”

The official items come from one of the cast members on the show. Besides her camera work, Laura Bailey has been in charge of Critical Role merchandise from the beginning. It all started with a single T-shirt they thought would never sell.

“Within a couple minutes,” said Bailey, “they were sold out on the stream. It was instantaneous, which was amazing. We realized maybe we could make some other T-shirts!”

Back then, everyone was pitching in on different aspects of the growing show. The performers knew they had to divide up the work to help the show get bigger. Travis Willingham was named CEO and Bailey was put in charge of creating merchandise.

“It’s grown and grown and grown,” said Bailey. “It’s probably good that we only did a hundred t-shirts at the time because we were shipping them out. We hand addressed every single envelope and shipped them from our dining room. The whole cast was sitting around and doodling on the envelopes! We’ve gone from that to six, seven warehouses throughout the world now shipping out our merchandise.”

Bailey’s next step as a clothing designer comes on April 25th, 2024. She will be taking part in the first Creators In Fashion event on the Style Theory Youtube channel. The stream will be hosted by MatPat and Amy Roberts with a special live show commentary by Rosanna Pansino.

YouTubeCritical Role, ZHC, and Game Theory?! Oh My! #Shorts #CreatorsInFashion

“They approached us and we jumped at the chance,” said Bailey. “It was such a unique experience. We’ve never done anything like this before and we’ve really never had a chance to showcase our clothing pieces in a way like this where it’s all been seen cohesively. So, yeah, we’re just very excited.”

Creators in Fashion’s featured creators have a combined reach of more than 155M subscribers, including Critical Role, graphic artist ZHC, POPFLEX and Blogilates founder Cassey Ho, adventure enthusiast Yes Theory, and more. Bailey will be there with a collection of merchandice including a new piece that will premiere on stream.

“Some of the people that will be walking are models that we are working with on the day,” said Bailey. “Then the majority of people walking in our looks are people that are at Critical Role. Employees wear this stuff every single day and it’s gonna be so much fun to see them walking the runway.”

The Pre-Show begins at 2:30 pm PST / 5:30 pm EST on April 25th, 2024. The Main Event begins at 3:00 pm PST / 6 pm EST April 25th, 2024. The guests and commentators will also be interacting with fans in the live chat.