The Kicks You Wear, Vol. 128 — The GO Flyease is so simple. Yet so important.

Let's talk about it.

Feb 05, 2021

Good morning, family! Happy Friday! We made it to the weekend. Hope you enjoyed the hell out of your work week and, for some of us, the snow days.

Yo, why did y’all let Lil Uzi put a diamond in his head? Fam, how does that even m…you know what? Never mind LOL.

Let’s jump in.

Getting to the point on the GO Flyease

(Photo by George Pagan III on Unsplash)

Nike has people really excited on the internet once again. This time, they’re giddy over the brand’s latest Flyease shoe.

You can slip right in or out of them handsfree. They’re super convenient, really innovative, and, yet, extremely simple. Here’s a look at em, via the homies over at Front Office Sports.

Front Office Sports @FOS

Nike has unveiled their first hands-free shoe: the Nike GO FlyEase.

Here’s how they work:

The shoe works off of a “bistable hinge” that allows it to shift between two positions — the upright one whether the heel kicks up and the collapsed position where your foot locks in. Think of it as a slipper with a solid heel.
The outer layer is supposedly a pretty snug fit. One can either walk or run in these things, which is dope.

People are really excited about this thing. This shoe has been talked about as a legitimate competitor to Crocs as a versatile slip-on shoe, although, I’d argue it’s $120 price tag is a bit of a setback.

But none of that really matters. All of that sort of misses the point with this shoe. This isn’t just a hyped Croc. It’s not meant for lazy wear — this is a work in accessibility. This shoe is a real gamechanger for people with disabilities.

To understand that, we have to understand the origins of Nike’s Flyease line.

In 2012, Matthew Walzer, a teen with cerebral palsy, wrote Nike detailing his struggles with their sneakers and asking them to create shoes for disabled people.
Shortly after, Flyease was born. In 2015 they unveiled the Flyease Zoom Soldier 8 as their first entry into the category.

That has continued since. But, mostly, we’ve seen new sneaker models for athletic purposes specifically aside from the AJ1 Flyease joint that dropped with the Fearless collection in 2019.

Nike’s new GO Flyease is for regular folks. They aren’t built specifically for athletes. On top of that, they’re hands-free. So they’re both functional and dope for everyday people.

There’s still a long way to go in properly serving folks with disabilities in the footwear industry, but this is a big step in the way of that. And that’s not something we should ever gloss over.

Shouts to Nike for serving the people.

Told y’all the Cosmics were coming

(Photo by NASA on Unsplash)

You can never say I leave you unprepared here on the Kicks You Wear. The Cosmic Unity hoops shoe is on the way.

We got more information on the upcoming drop this week. And, as it turns out, they’ll be here later this month on February 26.

The homie Luis Torres over at Nice Kicks put together a thorough breakdown of the joint that included an interview with Ross Klein, Nike’s Senior Creative Director of Men’s Footwear Performance.

He asked about the need the Cosmic is filling. Klein some poignant things to say.

“Let’s go back to Space Hippie for a second, and we can talk about the journey. Space Hippie was a conversation of really unlocking new innovations, new thoughts to better our world, and they did it through the lens of lifestyles sportswear. It brought upon a new conversation about what’s going on and how our decisions have high impact.
We’re looking at the broader spectrum of performance as well. As we sort of transfer from the knowledge, the experience, and the education we have from space hippie, we’re starting to scale those ideas and make them even you know powered through the lens of performance. That was one of the missions of cosmic.”

Yeah, I’m ready for these things to be here today.

Does corporate kill culture?

That’s the debate that I’ve seen quite a bit on the timeline this week. It was all triggered by the news of JD Sports acquiring DTLR Villa.

The details:

JD is purchasing DTLR Villa for $495 million in cash, according to reports. This is just the latest acquisition for JD Sports, which also purchased Shoe Palace back in December 2020.

Immediately, I wonder what this means for DTLR Villa.

Downtown Locker room has always been a huge local presence in the DMV. It’s always focused on this community — from the selection of New Balance kicks and Foamposites always in store to the folks they hired.
It was the same with Sneaker Villa in Philadelphia and throughout the Northeastern region it occupies.

Does that change at all? Do those cultures fade? Do we see more of a national vibe come to these stores like Finish Line and Foot Locker? I’m unsure. Nick Engvall, Outside the Box podcast host, wrote a pretty good piece on how “culture” fades with consolidations like these — though that’s not inherently good or bad. It’s just…a thing.

We don’t know how this will turn out. But one thing we do know for sure is that it’s going to keep the lights on at DTLR Villa. And, in the midst of a global pandemic when no one is going to brick and mortar stores anymore, that’s each and every company’s priority.

So we should expect to see a lot more of these acquisitions as 2021 goes on.