59- noir was drawn to a passage in which Nana dresses in an attractive, slightly transgressive (that Pierre- is, hatless) outfit as a way of being noticed by men. The workers at right watch the chain of Auguste young women, but the newspaper reader in top hat at left appears unmoved by the nearby ex- Renoir, panse of energetic, audacious, and girlish pulchritude. UAssommoir, In chapter 11 of Zola's Nana, her distinctive costume for the Grand Prix at Longchamp 1877-78, becomes the unmistakable sign of her worldly success. It is the weapon that attracts and recon- pen and quers men and makes honest women envious, even admiring. Nana's attire at the race track is brown ink not only extravagant and new but in its details departs from the high fashion of the i86os. Zola with black projects the enticing modes of the late 18708 onto the Second Empire: "The little bodice and chalk, the tunic of blue silk clinging to the body, caught up in back in an enormous puff, sketched out Joseph and her thighs in an impudent way in those days of ballooning skirts." She dominates the occasion Helen by her controlled presentation, with each detail of costume in careful focus. Not wishing for a Regenstein moment to enhance Nana's advantage, the respectable women refused to bet on the horse Foundation, named Nana: "It would certainly not do to work toward the success of a dirty slut who was restricted gift outdoing all of them with her four white horses, her servants, her air of being able to swallow up 1986.420, the whole world."69 Art Institute Throughout the chapter, Zola endows Nana's toilette with social and sexual power. Even of Chicago. though at the start of the event Nana lacked the conventional indicator of prominence (entry to the weighing-in enclosure, granted only to ladies), she was able nonetheless to consolidate her dominance of the event — "there was finally only one crowd, only one hubbub, and it sur- rounded her landau." She could in the end confidently denounce the other women using 74 quality of dress as a metaphor for power: "Insofar as the entry to the weighing-in area was abso-