Nike LeBron Soldier 12 FlyEase 'Black Red'
Colorway: Black/University Red-Black · Style code: AV3812-004 · Release date: March 21, 2019 · Price: $2832 · Availability: Available now
More colorways: Nike LeBron Soldier 12 FlyEase 'Arthur' (AV3812-700) · Nike LeBron Soldier 12 EP (AO4053-003) · Nike LeBron Soldier 12 'Bred' (AO2609-003) · Nike LeBron Soldier 12 EP (AO4055-900) · Nike LeBron Soldier 12 'Anchor' (AO2609-401)
FlyEase started with a letter. In 2012 a Florida teenager named Matthew Walzer, who has cerebral palsy and full flexibility in only one hand, wrote to Nike asking for a shoe he could fasten himself. Tobie Hatfield, a designer already working on the problem, spent close to three years developing an answer with Walzer's feedback, and the result (a zipper running around the heel that lets the back of the shoe open completely) first shipped on a Soldier model in 2015. This is the twelfth Soldier carrying the same system: a zip travelling up and around the collar, paired with the line's strap closure, so the shoe can be opened, entered and fastened with one hand. Black covers the upper with university red on the branding and trim, a pairing the model returned to repeatedly. Adaptive footwear was a niche experiment when this work began and has since become a permanent category, and the Soldier's existing strapped, laceless design is the reason it was chosen to carry it first.