So while on the surface seeing these two in a Nike commercial seems like a surprise, for those who've been paying attention, it's the culmination of something that's been a long time coming. We spoke to Mayer and Hugh about their new Nike collaboration, design philosophy, and much more.

GQ: What was your first thought when you saw the VaporMax?

Errolson Hugh: I just thought it was totally futuristic. I loved that nothing about it referenced the past. It's a pure performance idea. It's just the Air bubble. And the Flyknit is the most state of the art thing you can do.

How did you land on this chevron pattern on the upper?

Hugh: Well, we purposefully decided to go a different route then we had been going with other Nike shoes. The main reason for that is that the [VaporMax Moc] works fine as it is. You can just slip it on. There's no reason to add to it, with like zippers or buckles. For us, if you're just adding things for the look, it's just ornamentation. So we had to find a different way to modify the shoe. When we get a chance to do something, we try to push it as far as we can.

John Mayer: I have a lateral question. When you see [fan-made] mock ups of things you might do that have zippers all over them, does that push you to not do them? Are you influenced by what people think they're going to get, once you see it?

Hugh: Probably, yeah. For us, these shoes are kind of almost three years old. We did these a long time ago. So just naturally we're also in a different place than the market at the time. What happened with the first shoe we did, the Lunar Force, it kicked off this DIY thing at the consumer level. Kids were cutting their shoes open and adding their own zippers. And some of the ones we saw were amazing. There's no reason for us to do a zipper on the VaporMax because there's probably a Chinese kid in his basement who's going to do one better than we could do.

Mayer: There's a new arc that happens when someone sees something they don't expect. We call it "hate" on the internet because we don't have another word for it. I saw this with the guitar I just put out. But they're not hating on it. They're just reacting to the fact that they don't have a point of reference for it.

Hugh: That's a very constructive way of looking it.

Mayer: I think it's just people's way of touching it when they can't touch it. People are just ripping into it. It's a form of interaction. But it's more puzzlement. Hating on a shoe that you just saw 30 seconds ago is proof of your analysis of it. It's almost obvious that if you see something brand new, you're not going to understand it. But you see the process in real time. At first they go "yuck!" And then four days later they say, "It's growing on me." Four days after that, they see it on Errolson and go, "I have to have it."

GQ: What's better, in your opinion? Taking the route you just described to loving something, or to love it right away?

Mayer: If someone says, "Wow, that's amazing" right away, then I don't think you've done anything to move their point of reference forward. I told Errolson it took me four minutes with these shoes. It took me four minutes to go from "Yuck!" to loving them. And that's what I like. I like that his vision exists outside of my vision. That's why we look up to people who exist outside of our realm.