Nike Flywire is a thread, composed of

vectran Vectran is a manufactured fiber, spun from a liquid-crystal polymer (LCP) created by Celanese Corporation and now manufactured by Kuraray. Chemically it is an aromatic polyester produced by the polycondensation of 4-hydroxybenzoic acid and 6-hyd ...

nylon Nylon is a generic designation for a family of synthetic polymers composed of polyamides ( repeating units linked by amide links).The polyamides may be aliphatic or semi-aromatic. Nylon is a silk-like thermoplastic, generally made from pe ...

, developed by

Nike Nike often refers to: * Nike (mythology), a Greek goddess who personifies victory * Nike, Inc., a major American producer of athletic shoes, apparel, and sports equipment Nike may also refer to: People * Nike (name), a surname and feminine give ...

to minimize weight and maximize support, and used in the upper part of a sneaker. Shoes containing Flywire became available for consumer purchase in 2008.

Development

Flywire was created by Jay Meschter, Director of Innovation at Nike. He began by taking a

last A last is a mechanical form shaped like a human foot. It is used by shoemakers and cordwainers in the manufacture and repair of shoes. Lasts typically come in pairs and have been made from various materials, including hardwoods, cast iron, an ...

(an object shaped like a foot used to design shoes) and marking the key points of where a shoe needs to support the foot. When Meschter saw an embroidery machine, he determined the machine could be used to make long stitches. Long stitches allow lightweight fibers to support the foot in key points, instead of using layers of material that support the whole foot. This idea was pioneered by

Adi Dassler Adolf "Adi" Dassler (3 November 1900 – 6 September 1978) was a German cobbler, inventor and entrepreneur who founded the German sportswear company Adidas. He was also the younger brother of Rudolf Dassler, founder of Puma. Dassler was an inn ...

in 1949, when he added 3 reinforcing stripes to his canvas Adidas running shoe.

Design

The goal of the design is to help and support the foot using the lightest and strongest material possible,

Vectran Vectran is a manufactured fiber, spun from a liquid-crystal polymer (LCP) created by Celanese Corporation and now manufactured by Kuraray. Chemically it is an aromatic polyester produced by the polycondensation of 4-hydroxybenzoic acid and 6-hyd ...

. The Flywire design (threads placed in key parts of the upper) prevents the foot from slipping when running. Flywire is also a

minimalist In visual arts, music and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in post– World War II in Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with minimalism include Do ...

idea (the idea that items should only contain necessities), since the upper only contains the fundamental features. This allows the maximum amount of energy to be moved forward each stride.

Vectran

Nike adapts

fibers, which are produced by

Kuraray is a Japanese manufacturer of chemicals, fibers and other materials. Their main manufacturing facilities are located in Kurashiki, Okayama. The company's Tokyo administrative offices are located in Otemachi, Chiyoda in the Ote Center Building ...

, into embroidery threads, before use in the shoe. Vectran fibers are thinner than human hair, and relatively inexpensive. Vectran is lightweight, flexible, and high in

tensile strength Ultimate tensile strength (UTS), often shortened to tensile strength (TS), ultimate strength, or F_\text within equations, is the maximum stress that a material can withstand while being stretched or pulled before breaking. In brittle materials t ...

, the stress at which material deforms (five times stronger than steel), which makes it an ideal component for synthetic fibers. Vectran has also been used by

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil List of government space agencies, space program ...

and in bicycle tires, among other things.

Support

Nike designed Flywire with inspiration from a suspension bridge, where many cables provide support. This allows support to be placed where necessary, especially in the forefoot (

metatarsus The metatarsal bones, or metatarsus, are a group of five long bones in the foot, located between the tarsal bones of the hind- and mid-foot and the phalanges of the toes. Lacking individual names, the metatarsal bones are numbered from the me ...

and toes) and heel. The cables are designed to wrap around the foot like

tendon A tendon or sinew is a tough, high-tensile-strength band of dense fibrous connective tissue that connects muscle to bone. It is able to transmit the mechanical forces of muscle contraction to the skeletal system without sacrificing its ability ...

s. Since the support does not come from layers of material, the shoe is also more flexible. The only layers of material on the shoe are in place to prevent dirt and rocks from reaching the foot.

Weight

Due to the Vectran fibers, shoes containing Nike Flywire weigh as little as 93

gram The gram (originally gramme; SI unit symbol g) is a unit of mass in the International System of Units (SI) equal to one one thousandth of a kilogram. Originally defined as of 1795 as "the absolute weight of a volume of pure water equal to th ...

s, "approximately the weight of a

Snickers Snickers is a chocolate bar made by the American company Mars, Incorporated, consisting of nougat topped with caramel and peanuts that is encased in milk chocolate. The annual global sales of Snickers was over $3 billion . In the United ...

bar with a bite missing." There is little excess weight because the upper is very thin, and the Vectran fibers are only added where support is needed. Shoe weight can be reduced up to 50% through the use of Flywire.

Track spikes Track spikes, or just spikes, are a type of footwear featuring protruding spikes on the soles used by athletes when racing on the track. Some spikes are designed for longer-term training on tracks, but generally the shoes are used for racing. Th ...

(running shoes with spikes added for traction) containing Flywire are now lighter than Michael Johnson's famous Golden Shoes of the

1996 Summer Olympics The 1996 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXVI Olympiad, also known as Atlanta 1996 and commonly referred to as the Centennial Olympic Games) were an international multi-sport event held from July 19 to August 4, 1996, in Atlanta, ...

in Atlanta, Georgia. These spikes are so light that athletes claim they are like "a second skin" or "spikes coming out of their feet." This is a goal that

Bill Bowerman William Jay Bowerman (February 19, 1911 – December 24, 1999) was an American track and field coach and co-founder of Nike, Inc. Over his career, he trained 31 Olympic athletes, 51 All-Americans, 12 American record-holders, 22 NCAA champi ...

tried to achieve as co-founder of Nike and a spike designer.

Shoes

Many Nike shoes contain Flywire. These shoes are designed for a variety of activities and sports, including

running Running is a method of terrestrial locomotion allowing humans and other animals to move rapidly on foot. Running is a type of gait characterized by an aerial phase in which all feet are above the ground (though there are exceptions). This is ...

athletics Athletics may refer to: Sports * Sport of athletics, a collection of sporting events that involve competitive running, jumping, throwing, and walking ** Track and field, a sub-category of the above sport * Athletics (physical culture), competi ...

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...

badminton Badminton is a racquet sport played using racquets to hit a shuttlecock across a net. Although it may be played with larger teams, the most common forms of the game are "singles" (with one player per side) and "doubles" (with two players p ...

, football,

American Football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wi ...

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...

and

tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...

. The

shoes were debuted at the 2007 World Championships at

Osaka is a designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the third most populous city in Japan, following Special wards of Tokyo and Yokohama. With a population of ...

, while the rest made their first appearance at the 2008 Summer Olympics, in Beijing, China, though all are now available for consumer purchase.

References

External links

* {{Nike, Inc., state=collapsed Shoes Nike, Inc.