In Sheila E’s first hit song as a solo artist, she describes the style aesthetic of “The Glamorous Life” in the first line of the lyrics: “She wears a long fur coat of mink/ Even in the summertime.” For the music video, she recalls in her memoir, The Beat of My Own Drum, that “it was a given that I’d wear my long mink coat to match the storyline and the lyrics… The off-white-and-gray mink was perfect for the black-and-white sequences.” (p 197). While a seemingly simple choice of wearing a “long fur coat of mink,” this clothing article represents not only a symbol of wealth, luxury, and social prestige in the 20^th century, but also a reference to libidinal desire and sexual fetish. In addition, the sociocultural and political landscape surrounding the consumption of fur extends beyond the limits of projecting and living “the glamorous life,” reflecting the complexities of its semiotics. In this talk, I will analyze Sheila E.’s iconic mink coat as a symbol in the evolution of fur as a topic of debate in fashion through the intersection of race, class, sex, and of course, environmental issues.

Karen Turman is a Preceptor of French in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at Harvard University. She earned her B.A. (2001) at the University of Minnesota, and her M.A. (2008) and Ph.D. (2013) in French Literature with an emphasis in Applied Linguistics at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her interdisciplinary research interests include 19th-century Bohemian Paris, music, and dance during the Jazz Age, fashion and popular culture studies, community engagement scholarship, indigenous artists and activists in the Francophone Pacific, and topics of social justice and sustainability in the language classroom. Dr. Turman’s publications on Prince include an essay on Josephine Baker, Claude McKay, and Prince entitled “Banana Skirts and Cherry Moons: Utopic French Myths in Prince’s Under the Cherry Moon,” and “Prettyman in the Mirror: Dandyism in Prince’s Minneapolis.” She is currently working on a monograph on Prince and fashion.