Exploring the role of Emerging Technologies in preservation and promotion of traditional costumes: The role of AI in current practices.

Abstract

In the evolving landscape of cultural heritage preservation, emerging technologies such as Extended Reality (XR) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are reshaping how archival and heritage material are preserved, documented, interpreted and promoted, since they can allow interactive and immersive experiences that can lead to deeper engagement and cultural appreciation. Traditional clothing that was worn during folk dancing is a core element of both tangible and intangible cultural heritage since it is correlated with various parameters such as movement, shapes, materials, crafts and history. This study aims to explore the possible ways that emerging technologies can contribute to the preservation and promotion of traditional costumes by studying current state of the art in the digitization and interactive presentation of traditional costumes, with particular emphasis on movement and interactivity aspects. Furthermore, it examines case studies of AI application in the traditional heritage clothing area as well as in the contemporary fashion retail sector. The goal is to identify gaps in the existing XR heritage costumes pipeline and investigate areas that AI can contribute and ultimately, taking paradigms from AI applications in retail industry to see possible applications in the promotion/preservation of costume heritage section. Through the analysis of representative studies and projects, the review highlights growing interest in areas such as immersive experiences and 3D garment reconstruction. However, significant gaps persist in the dynamic, motion-aware, and interactive representation of costumes, especially within dance contexts. The study examines how AI can support various stages of the digital costume heritage pipeline, including metadata enrichment, generative reconstruction, motion simulation, and user experience evaluation. Moreover it identifies the domains where AI technologies are currently more mature and those where development is still emerging. Finally, it outlines future research opportunities, particularly in AI-assisted animation, virtual try-on systems, and gamified cultural applications. This review calls for a shift from passive digitization to context-aware, interactive, and embodied approaches that can capture the full material and symbolic complexity of traditional garments as both cultural artifacts and living expressions of heritage.