RHITA Glossary: Designing a Language Infrastructure for the Future of Fashion

The contribution proposes the creation of a glossary that adopts a critical approach to questioning the role of the twin transitions — digital and green — in the Made in Italy fashion ecosystem. The aim is to build a dynamic semantic infrastructure capable of reducing terminological ambiguities, aligning heterogeneous actors, and making explicit the cultural implications of the socio-technical transformations currently underway. The identification of conceptual clusters was guided by a methodological approach that integrates desk research and qualitative document analysis, in line with the three areas of investigation of the RHITA project: the technological dimension, economic models, and human capital. The resulting lexicon represents a mediation between knowledge and needs, developed across heterogeneous contexts — universities, SMEs, artisans, designers, and government institutions — and guides both the architecture of the Web 3.0 platform and the co-design processes activated. The contribution highlights how the formalisation of a shared language, including within the field of design, can support collective sense-making practices, inter-actor coordination, and sustainable innovation, thereby configuring an interpretative framework that critically connects research and practice in the Italian fashion system.