HeriTech4Fashion is a project coordinated by the Department of Design of Politecnico di Milano, developed in collaboration with Gianfranco Ferré Research Center - Digital Innovation for the Creative and Cultural Industries. This center was established by Politecnico di Milano following the donation of the archive and headquarters of Gianfranco Ferré Foundation by the Ferré family to the university.

Gianfranco Ferré Research Center is an interdisciplinary project involving various departments of Politecnico di Milano: the Department of Design, the Department of Mechanical Engineering, the Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering, and the Department of Mathematics. It is based on an interdisciplinary vision that combines Heritage with innovation and technology, integrating deep domain knowledge in the fields of design and fashion with ICT skills, User Experience, and User Interaction.

HeriTech4Fashion was created with the aim of enhancing the historical archive and database of the Research Center through a series of activities and projects, aimed at making the heritage of techniques and knowledge accessible and promoting it through multichannel augmented access pathways.

The historical archive preserves more than 3500 items, including clothing and accessories, as well as numerous documents such as photos and videos of fashion shows, original sketches by Gianfranco Ferré, press releases, magazines, and the designer's lectures and notes. This archive, housed in an image bank physically located at the Research Center and partially available online, is capable of narrating the evolution of the creative process and production techniques underlying fashion products.

Indeed, the fashion and textile sectors are permeated with profound cultural significance and recognized for their considerable contributions, making them fertile ground for investigating and implementing emerging technological advancements aimed at enhancing the interaction of diverse audiences with cultural repositories and archives. The growing influence of technology has facilitated its penetration into increasingly diverse and extensive user demographics, creating a reality characterized by the convergence of digital and physical dimensions.

In this context, many cultural institutions and GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums) are progressively leveraging digital platforms to enhance accessibility to their cultural heritage collections, bolstering their competitiveness in fostering cultural engagement through digital media, and harnessing the potential of new technologies to update formats, codes, and languages.

HeriTech4Fashion aims to integrate this vast cultural, material, and documentary heritage - both tangible and intangible - with the scientific culture and research expertise of Politecnico di Milano. It focuses on fashion heritage, proposing actions f or dissemination, enhanced enjoyment, and the valorization of a technical legacy rooted in the textile and fashion fields.

Through advanced technologies such as Digital Twin (DT), Augmented Reality (AR), and Virtual Reality (VR), HeriTech4Fashion aimed to reassess heritage narrative methods and develop new strategies to enhance accessibility and usability, promoting a broader understanding of the elements of cultural heritage, especially the intangible ones.

The project thus experimented with an integrated cyber-physical dimension in Fashion Heritage, using advanced digital technologies to offer new experiences of enjoyment, engagement, and exploration. *The aim is to adapt these innovations to the fashion industry, catering to diverse audiences and promoting cultural literacy through immersive technologies and educational platforms oriented towards cultural understanding in the field of fashion and textiles.
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