Everything You Need to Know About Nike Flyweave Technology

Since the company’s inception in 1972, Nike has perpetually designed technically advanced products while responding to the needs of world-class athletes. This progressive drive was a guiding force behind developing Flyweave, an upper system that fine-tunes support for specific movements.

Created through an intricate weaving process, Flyweave technology forms a textile upper maximizing the foot’s natural motion and acting as a second skin. The process of producing a single piece of material shifts shoe construction from the centuries old cut-and-sew method. Flyweave allows Nike designers to account for the durability, strength and stability requirements of individual athletes and sports.

Four years ago, Bell was intrigued by the engineered textiles prevalent in the aerospace industry. The strength, reliability and performance of these products help save lives. Additionally, his experience in intricate bag design featuring a durable nylon piqued his curiosity and prompted his own experiments with the technically woven material.

Sampling countless textile materials in his 12 years working for Nike gave Bell a unique advantage, as he helped refine fabrication techniques. The result of his experimentation birthed what is now known as Flyweave.

Textiles are typically developed by either knitting or weaving. Knits specifically have informed athletic shoe design since Nike Flyknit technology debuted in 2012.

Knitting creates multiple loops of yarn, where active stitches produce consecutive rows of interlocking loops. With basic knitting principals as inspiration, Nike Flyknit technology has transformed footwear construction with its ability to reduce waste. Originating in the running department, Flyknit is now common across multiple sports shoes including footwear for baseball, basketball, soccer and training.

Bell leveraged Nike’s collective experience in knit construction to engineer textiles with weaving, a process inherently stronger and more intricate than knitting. Bell has become an expert in the weaving process, which is produced on a loom that interlaces two distinct sets of thread (the warp and weft) to create a textile.  A woven seam connects every yarn and has maximum strength for footwear construction.

Computer-aided engineering allows designers to customize individual Flyweave uppers by the megapixel.  Material modifications allow the addition of small pockets that may be filled for padded comfort or stability.  For example, foam cushioning inserted into an open Flyweave pocket on a shoe’s tongue reducing impact to the navicular bone on the top of the foot. Flywire cables can also be integrated into the Flyweave upper’s structure on the medial and lateral sides for added strength and support.

Nike has debuted Flyweave in four prominent shoes over the past year: the Air Jordan 29 (basketball), Nike TW ’15 (golf), Nike CJ Elite TD Cleat (football) and Nike CJ3 Flyweave Trainer (training).

These four shoes tune Flyweave technology uniquely to the demands of very different sports. Across the board, the engineered textile uppers of each shoe provides superior lockdown and containment for lateral movements.

The future of Flyweave excites many Nike designers, including Leo Chang, Nike Basketball’s Footwear Design Director. Charged with bringing top innovation to hoops, Chang has spent countless hours with Bell collaborating on a new Flyweave constructed basketball shoe debuting in the near future.

While it’s true that some of Nike’s most innovative footwear technologies are based on centuries-old methods of knitting and weaving, trailblazing designers will continue to evolve these methods with materials and construction inherent to Nike’s innovative DNA.