Is artist, photographer and now fashion designer Mr Jack Greer’s skatewear label Iggy perhaps named after indestructible Stooges frontman Mr Iggy Pop? Or maybe a nod to Australian rapper and prolific Twitter user Ms Iggy Azalea? Neither, as it happens – it’s so called in homage to Mr Greer’s dog, an Alaskan Klee Kai. Which begs the question: who is the dog named after?

In truth, we forgot to ask. But perhaps the more pertinent question is: is Iggy even a skatewear label at all? It’s certainly not a streetwear label, or, at least, streetwear is a term the creator has previously voiced his concern over. “I have no antagonistic relationship with streetwear or any wear for that matter,” Mr Greer tells us. “I am merely trying to say I don’t want to be boxed in by any category that narrows the potential reach of the brand. The progressive understanding of identity, gender and culture is further along than our terminology used to describe the relationship between who we are and what we wear.”

Delve deeper, and it’s clear that the variegated T-shirts, sweaters, shirts and accessories that comprise the collection contain many such contradictions themselves. A prominent theme is of a form of bondage, with medieval face mask complete with eye-gouging vices featuring across several pieces; at the opposite end of the spectrum, somewhere over the semicircle of refracted light, sits a cheery rainbow checkerboard sweater (shown below). So, how does the designer hold such wildly differing concepts together in his mind, let alone in one collection? “In order to keep my feet walking down the street, I have to look inside the gutter and up at the stars,” he says.

As an artist foremost, the collection could mark a departure for Mr Greer. But rather, he sees it as a continuation of his subversive visual work. “Most of the textiles in the garments are constructed out of my illustrations or photographs,” is how he explains the collection as a whole. “The result is a patchwork of imagery that reads as a garment but is built out of my iconography.”

We felt, then, that the best way to discover this line, which arrives on MR PORTER this week, is to have Mr Greer himself talk us through some of the pieces. Mr Greer, however, had other ideas. “Part of the education of subcultural environment I grew up in was geared towards ‘earning’ or ‘seeking’ the knowledge as opposed to bullet-point breakdowns of it,” he told us. “I’ll try, though.”

“Spanning nearly 40 years of scribbles woven into a textile, the trousers are a composition of 35mm black and white photographs from my archive of wet cement graffiti in the East Village, Manhattan, NYC,” Mr Greer reveals when considering this piece, which touches on his 2015 show, Landmark, at the Howard Street Gallery. “Who walked by at just the right time to leave their imprint behind?”

“I went to Copenhagen in 2016 – freeloading on a trip for friends to acquire footage and compete in the CPH Open skate contest. While there, we took the train to Malmö to skate a few spots our friends knew about.  Andrew sessioned the rail and the ground sessioned his hands. Got the trick and a few years later, I drew the pic. The drawing became the source of developing the textile.”

“DJ Rick Yanku started his morning radio show in the US army base at Dhahran with a cry of ‘Gooood morning Saudi Arabia!’ immediately followed by ‘Rock The Casbah’ [by The Clash], which soon became the battle tune of the marines fighting the war against Saddam,” Mr Greer says. “They took the lyrics, which are still often misinterpreted, to be a call to literally ‘rock’ the old Arabian town and bomb the minarets.” This belt is equally misunderstood. Sure, it will hold your trousers up, but it also doubles as a bottle opener.

“Sometimes symbolism just looks good,” says Mr Greer. “Rainbow, but not the store on Delancey [street in New York].”