 Close up image of the Flywire on an Air Max 'Hyperfly Supreme' | |
| Type | Yarn used in sneakers |
|---|---|
| Inventor | Jay Meschter |
| Inception | 2008 |
| Manufacturer | Nike, Inc. |
| Website | nike.com/flywire |
Nike Flywire is a thread, composed of vectran or nylon, developed by Nike 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. [1]
Flywire was created by Jay Meschter, Director of Innovation at Nike. [2] He began by taking a foot last 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.
Nike designed Flywire with inspiration from a suspension bridge, where many cables provide support. [2] This allows support to be placed where necessary, especially in the forefoot (metatarsus and toes) and heel. The cables are designed to wrap around the foot like tendons.
Nike adapts Vectran fibers, which are produced by Kuraray, 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, the stress at which material deforms (five times stronger than steel [3] ), which makes it an ideal component for synthetic fibers. Vectran has also been used by NASA and in bicycle tires, among other things. [4]
Due to the Vectran fibers, shoes containing Nike Flywire weigh as little as 93 grams, "approximately the weight of a Snickers bar with a bite missing." [5] 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. [3] Track spikes (running shoes with spikes added for traction) containing Flywire are now lighter than Michael Johnson's famous Golden Shoes of the 1996 Summer Olympics 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 tried to achieve as co-founder of Nike and a spike designer. [6]
Many Nike shoes contain Flywire. [1] These shoes are designed for a variety of activities and sports, including running, athletics, basketball, badminton, football, American Football, baseball and tennis. The athletics shoes were debuted at the 2007 World Championships at Osaka, while the rest made their first appearance at the 2008 Summer Olympics, in Beijing, China, though all are now available for consumer purchase. [3]
Kevlar (para-aramid) is a strong, heat-resistant synthetic fiber, related to other aramids such as Nomex and Technora. Developed by Stephanie Kwolek at DuPont in 1965, the high-strength material was first used commercially in the early 1970s as a replacement for steel in racing tires. It is typically spun into ropes or fabric sheets that can be used as such, or as an ingredient in composite material components.
A shoe is an item of footwear intended to protect and comfort the human foot. Though the human foot can adapt to varied terrains and climate conditions, it is vulnerable, and shoes provide protection. Form was originally tied to function, but over time, shoes also became fashion items. Some shoes are worn as safety equipment, such as steel-toe boots, which are required footwear at industrial worksites.
Hardanger embroidery or "Hardangersøm" is a form of embroidery traditionally worked with white thread on white even-weave linen or cloth, using counted thread and drawn thread work techniques. It is sometimes called whitework embroidery.
Sneakers (US) or trainers (UK), also known by a wide variety of other names, are shoes primarily designed for sports or other forms of physical exercise but which are also widely used for everyday casual wear.
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. The term "spikes" can also refer to track shoes featuring such protrusions, though these are technically called pins. Spikes are similar to studs, which are used for team sports, although generally smaller and with a sharp point.
Skate shoes or skateboard shoes are a type of footwear specifically designed and manufactured for use in skateboarding. While numerous non-skaters choose to wear skate shoes as they are popular in fashion, the design of the skate shoe includes many features designed especially for use in skateboarding, including a vulcanized rubber or polyurethane sole with minimal tread pattern or no pattern, a composition leather or suede upper, and reinforced stitching to extend the life of the upper material. The most important aspect of skate shoes is that they have flat soles which allow the skater to have better board control.
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Smocking is an embroidery technique used to gather fabric so that it can stretch. Before elastic, smocking was commonly used in cuffs, bodices, and necklines in garments where buttons were undesirable. Smocking developed in England and has been practised since the Middle Ages and is unusual among embroidery methods in that it was often worn by labourers. Other major embroidery styles are purely decorative and represented status symbols. Smocking was practical for garments to be both form fitting and flexible, hence its name derives from smock — an agricultural labourer's work shirt. Smocking was used most extensively in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
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Cleats or studs are protrusions on the sole of a shoe or on an external attachment to a shoe that provide additional traction on a soft or slippery surface. They can be conical or blade-like in shape and can be made of plastic, rubber or metal. The type worn depends on the environment of play: grass, ice, artificial turf, or other grounds.
Nike, Inc. is an American athletic footwear and apparel corporation headquartered near Beaverton, Oregon, United States. It is the world's largest supplier of athletic shoes and apparel and a major manufacturer of sports equipment, with revenue in excess of US$46 billion in its fiscal year 2022.
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Tailored fiber placement (TFP) is a textile manufacturing technique based on the principle of sewing for a continuous placement of fibrous material for composite components. The fibrous material is fixed with an upper and lower stitching thread on a base material. Compared to other textile manufacturing processes fiber material can be placed near net-shape in curvilinear patterns upon a base material in order to create stress adapted composite parts.
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String is a long flexible structure made from fibers twisted together into a single strand, or from multiple such strands which are in turn twisted together. String is used to tie, bind, or hang other objects. It is also used as a material to make things, such as textiles, and in arts and crafts. String is a simple tool, and its use by humans is known to have been developed tens of thousands of years ago. In Mesoamerica, for example, string was invented some 20,000 to 30,000 years ago, and was made by twisting plant fibers together. String may also be a component in other tools, and in devices as diverse as weapons, musical instruments, and toys.
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Super shoes or carbon-plated shoes are a type of lightweight running shoe incorporating carbon fiber plates and thick foam soles. They are typically used in long-distance running, including trail running and marathons. Since their introduction in 2016, super shoes have coincided with a series of record-breaking times in long-distance running events.
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