[Ernestine Nadar]

However much she may have deplored Nadar's enormous expenditures on his ballooning experiments, Madame Nadar supported him in the enterprise. Women's clothing of the 1860s, particularly the fashionable, enormous crinoline skirts, was clearly unsuitable for balloon ascensions, so she adopted men's clothing tailored to her specifications, including a soft-brimmed bowler hat into which her hair could be tucked. Among her accessories in some of these nine poses are what appear to be a case for binoculars and the anchor for a balloon, used to attach to a tree or the ground when descending.