Fibre I recognised in girl from the East (5)
I believe the answer is:
sisal
'fibre' is the definition.
(sisal is a kind of fibre)
'i recognised in girl from the east' is the wordplay.
'recognised in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'girl' becomes 'lass' (lass is a kind of girl).
'from the east' says the letters should be written backwards.
'i' inserted inside 'lass' is 'lasis'.
'lasis' back-to-front is 'SISAL'.
(Other definitions for sisal that I've seen before include "Hemp fibre" , "constituent of rope" , "Fibre from agave plant" , "Fibre of Mexican agave" , "Agave cultivated for its fibre" .)