Nike Basketball recently published an interview with Jason Petrie who has worked with LeBron James for more than a decade. They also unveiled the unreleased Nike LeBron 15 in Black and Volt.
Jason worked with Nike and LeBron on every model starting with the LeBron 7. He also contributed to the LeBron Soldier series.
Here, Petrie discusses the nuances of his latest design, with special consideration for the Nike BattleKnit that influences the LEBRON 15’s sharp aesthetic.
How does knit benefit LeBron? What does this knit do?
This new iteration of Flyknit, Nike BattleKnit, is built specifically for LeBron. He needed something more than what knit uppers, to date, could provide for him structurally and also in the way that he wanted it to come to life.
So, we spent a lot of time figuring out what the solution within the knit process would be, and it took the knit innovation team actually knitting the material in a completely different way in order to benefit LeBron, which is really cool, and opened up a bunch of possibilities.
The main benefits we were looking for were containment and strength, but we also needed the things that are great about Flyknit: fit, a dialed design and less waste.
With the knit in one material, one basically fabric part, we’re able to engineer the protection, stretch and performance specifications we want to have for each area of the shoe. It’s an all-in-one package that allows LeBron to feel locked down, feel protected and also be able to move freely to dictate the action on court and to respond and react when he needs.
What is most exciting to you about the upper?
Aside from the performance benefits, which I think is inherent in any Nike shoe, the colors we have coming and some of the things you can do with knit that you can’t do with traditional construction have me really geeked out. It’s just getting started as we explore Flyknit for LeBron.
How do you go about formulating the color stories?
With every shoe in Nike Basketball, we’ve got an amazing team of color and materials designers. LeBron has given us some insight. There are some things that we wanted talk about through his lens. I think you’ll see that throughout the course of the season as we explore those stories and see all these little details and touches that provide this incredible narrative.
To read the entire interview, click here.
