A distinctive, sparkly fabric that is woven or knitted with or to include thin ribbons or fine metallic threads of gold, silver or copper. It is mostly used for glittery evening dresses and fancy dress costume, although there is no reason it can’t be used in furnishings, in the right place and for the right project.
As an aside, we tend to think of lame as high street material, a cheap imitation of the real thing, which is in reality, as with everything stitched and woven with real gold and silver, of extremely high calibre.
True lame is a luxury material with an early history- In couture lame is used for evening gowns and an early biblical reference from the Bible book of Exodus (28: 6-14) describes the High Priest’s Ephod (what we might call a tabard) as being woven from gold, blue, purple and scarlet threads and over embroidered with gold.