Dong Brocade, an identity-bearing textile tradition of China’s Dong communities, is increasingly encountered beyond its place-based origins through heritage display and contemporary design markets. While such circulation can strengthen cultural-identity meaning for wider publics, it can also heighten cultural-identity risk, including concerns about appropriation, symbolic dilution, and contextual loss. Existing research on Dong Brocade and similar heritage textiles remains largely descriptive and offers limited explanation of the psychological mechanism through which audiences translate meaning and risk perceptions into identity-oriented engagement, especially across heritage and design contexts. This study aims to develop a mechanism-based and cross-context theoretical account of identity-based engagement with Dong Brocade. Using a conceptual theory-development approach grounded in a targeted synthesis of literature across cultural identity, heritage interpretation, design translation, and appraisal–emotion–intention processes, we propose a Cognitive–Affective–Conative (CAC) framework. The framework theorizes that perceived cultural-identity meaning and perceived cultural-identity risk (cognitive appraisals) elicit positive and negative anticipated cultural emotions (affective responses), which consolidate into attitudes toward identity-based engagement and subsequently shape identity-based engagement intention, defined to include identity expression, heritage support, and responsible engagement. Further, we theorize context as a boundary condition: heritage settings are expected to amplify meaning-based appraisals and positive anticipated emotions, whereas design settings are expected to amplify risk-based appraisals and negative anticipated emotions. The study advances directionally specified propositions and provides actionable implications for heritage governance and culturally responsible design translation, offering a foundation for future empirical testing with culturally non-Dong audiences.