Check Out Nike’s 3D-Printed, Crazy Light, See-Through Shoe

The innovative Flyprint upper is being used first on the Vaporfly Elite.


Jeff Dengate |

When Galen Rupp ran down the rain-soaked streets of the Boston Marathon, he was wearing a shoe designed, in part, to resist getting water-logged. And, while the result wasn’t what Rupp had hoped for – he dropped out before 30km – the shoe may have helped another Nike athlete, Eliud Kipchoge, who won the London Marathon.

Using a modified 3D-printer, Nike created a new upper it’s calling Flyprint, which doesn’t use fabrics or yarns like more traditional footwear. Instead, it’s created from a thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) that is first melted, then laid out with painstaking detail to create a single-piece upper that is extremely breathable yet still supportive. It’s also featherlight and as transparent as a window screen on your home.

The technology is a continuation of Nike’s quest to build the fastest shoe, and is being used only on the Vaporfly Elite racing shoe that its best marathoners wear in competition. But it’s an evolution in materials that we might eventually see on shoes for everyday runners in the future.

Image courtesy of Nike

The technology is sort of like what the company has done with Flyknit in the past, building a seamless upper quickly and without any waste. But, since it’s using plastics instead of yarns, it won’t absorb any water on rainy days. This, Nike says, is based on feedback from Kipchoge after the 2017 Berlin Marathon last fall, another rainy 42.2km, which Kipchoge won in 2:03:32. The obvious advantage here is weight-savings, since waterlogged fabrics weigh more than dry materials. The TPU construction itself is 11 grams lighter than Flyknit.

The construction process also allows Nike’s footwear team to quickly iterate prototypes for its athletes, improving the shoe’s fit and performance. Because the TPU strands are fused, Nike can slightly alter the pattern via computer design to adjust breathability and flexibility in the forefoot, while also ensuring the midfoot is secure and the heel locked in place. If a tweak is needed in any area, those strands can be individually repositioned, without affecting any of the neighbouring strands – something that can’t be done with Flyknit.

Will Flyprint result in faster finishes? Time will tell.

READ MORE ON: gear nike Zoom Vaporfly Elite Flyprint

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