Camlet

Camlet is a plain or twilled cloth, originally woven from camel or Angora goat hair and later from wool, silk, or their blends. It reached medieval Europe through the Levant as a costly import, prized as warm, hard-wearing, and often finished with a watered or waterproofed surface. By the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries it was widely woven in England and the Low Countries for cloaks and coats. The name was attached to so many different cloths over the centuries that it became a byword for a fabric defined more by reputation than by any fixed recipe.

Named for

From the Old French camelot, associated with the Arabic khamlat, plush or nap; a folk etymology tied it to camel hair, the fiber of the earliest versions.

Also known as

camblet, chamlet

Modern equivalent

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Common questions

What is Camlet made of?: Camlet is a plain or twilled cloth, originally woven from camel or Angora goat hair and later from wool, silk, or their blends.
What is Camlet named after?: From the Old French camelot, associated with the Arabic khamlat, plush or nap; a folk etymology tied it to camel hair, the fiber of the earliest versions.