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From 1861 to 1890 the Munich publishing firm of Braun and Schneider published plates of historic and contemporary costume in their magazine Munchener Bilderbogen.<br/><br/> These plates were eventually collected in book form and published at the turn of the century in Germany and England.
The collapse of the Persian Sassanid Empire in the 7th century CE caused the state religion to be switched from Zoroastrianism to Islam. Zoroastrianism slowly went from the religion of most in Iran, to a persecuted minority.<br/><br/> For the survival of their faith and their lives, a large number of Zoroastrians chose to emigrate. According to the Qissa-i Sanjan, one group of those refugees landed in what is now Gujarat, India, where they were allowed greater freedom to observe their old customs and to preserve their faith.<br/><br/> The descendants of those Zoroastrians, now known as the Parsis, would play a small but significant role in the development of India. Today there are around 70,000 Parsis in India.<br/><br/> The Parsis, as Zoroastrians, still use a variant of the religious calendar instituted under the Sassanids. That calendar still marks the number of years since the accession of Yazdegerd III, just as it did in 632 CE.
The ao dai (Vietnamese: áo dài) is a Vietnamese national costume, now most commonly for women. In its current form, it is a tight-fitting silk tunic worn over pantaloons. The word is pronounced [ǎːwzâːj]. Áo is derived from a Middle Chinese word meaning 'padded coat' (襖). Dài means 'long'.<br/><br/> The word 'ao dai' was originally applied to the outfit worn at the court of the Nguyễn Lords at Huế in the 18th century. This outfit evolved into the áo ngũ thân, a five-paneled aristocratic gown worn in the 19th and early 20th centuries. On Tết and other occasions, Vietnamese men may wear an áo gấm (brocade robe), a version of the ao dai made of thicker fabric.