Cat hair covers Irving's coat (7)
I believe the answer is:
tigress
'cat' is the definition.
(tigress is a kind of cat)
'hair covers irving's coat' is the wordplay.
'hair' becomes 'tress' (tress is a kind of hair).
'covers' is an insertion indicator.
'coat' means to remove the middle letters (only the letters which coat the word are used).
'irving' with its centre taken out is 'ig'.
'tress' enclosing 'ig' is 'TIGRESS'.
(Other definitions for tigress that I've seen before include "Passionate woman" , "Wild woman" , "hunting animal" , "Wild cat (female)" , "Female big cat" .)