A year after his famous white “cloud” guitar appeared in Purple Rain (1984), Prince wore a bespoke sky-blue silk suit hand-painted with clouds for the “Raspberry Beret” music video. The clouds continued onto the set of the video shoot as well as the album cover for Around the World in a Day, both of which depict a colorful, diverse, and inclusive utopic world with a psychedelic dreamlike atmosphere. The motif of clouds would appear throughout his life in his clothing, instruments, lyrics, studio space, films, and videos. In his memoirs, Prince explains his fascination with clouds as a young boy: “I loved 2 play outside and felt completely free with no ceiling. Clouds seemed like home 2 me” (The Beautiful Ones 117). This idea of freedom, or living with no ceiling, was one of his key philosophies and he would continue to reject any societally imposed limitations on his artistic expression throughout his life. Grounded in a close analysis of the iconic suit worn in the “Raspberry Beret” video, this talk will explore the significance of clouds as an expression of freedom for Prince.

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.