From: The Wall Street Journal
February 16, 2009
ATHLETIC SHOES
MATT POWELL
SportsOneSource
Analyst
LIGHTER THAN AIR: It's the age-old question in the sneaker business: How do you make the shoe lighter? Mr. Powell, an analyst at SportsOneSource, a Charlotte, N.C., market-research firm, says Nike Inc. has introduced a technology called Flywire -- thin, nearly unbreakable strings that run through the upper part of the shoe, holding the sneaker together while eliminating much of the bulk. After testing the technology at the Olympics, Nike is offering it to consumers, with commercial lines for basketball and tennis, among others.
GOING GREEN: Traditional midsoles -- the sole's middle layer -- are made of a chemical compound that might last as long as 1,000 years in a landfill. Brooks Sports Inc. of Bothell, Wash., developed a running shoe with a biodegradable midsole that decomposes in a landfill over 20 years. The company says that by the end of the year all its footwear brands will have biodegradable midsoles.
ASTROTURF: Shoes slipping on the artificial grass? Reebok, a division of Adidas AG, is working with the maker of AstroTurf to study the interactions between footwear and field surfaces. The goal is to get a grip on traction before new Reebok shoes are developed sometime in the near future.
—Nicholas Casey
LINK to the WSJ
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