Flyleather is a performance material that looks, feels and smells like leather, and is made with at least 50% recycled leather fiber, combined with synthetic materials, using an innovative water-powered process. Nike Flyleather has a lower impact on climate change compared to traditional leather.

Nike Flyleather uses recycled leather scrap, once destined for the landfill, in the manufacturing process. The result? A new abrasion-resistant material that’s 40% more lightweight than full-grain leather.

In traditional leather shoe manufacturing, some leather scraps fall to tannery floors, eventually going to landfills. We recycle the leather fiber and combine it with synthetic materials to create Flyleather, diverting that waste from landfills.

The inspiration for Nike Flyleather was born out of a challenge to develop leather into a modern performance material – like engineered mesh and Flyknit – while preserving the look, feel and smell of full-grain leather.

Another crucial factor for developing Flyleather was our goal to reduce the climate change impact associated with traditional leather manufacturing. In addition to inventing a modern performance material, the mission was also to reinvent the material production process to reduce waste and lower impact on climate change.