Meet Miley’s Stylist

She says there wasn't enough twerking shown on TV during Cyrus's VMA performance

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LUCAS JACKSON / REUTERS

Miley Cyrus and Robin Thicke perform "Blurred Lines" during the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards in New York August 25, 2013.

Lisa Katnic has helped style Rihanna, the Jonas Brothers, and Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines” video. Now you can partially blame her for Miley Cyrus’s twerking display at the MTV Video Music Awards last month too. The Cut published an interview with the stylist today, and while there’s a lot of insider detail geared toward fashionistas, here are some fun takeaways that may help us understand how provocative pop music acts come about:

(MORE: MTV Documentary on Miley Cyrus)

Miley Wasn’t The Best Twerker at the VMAs. Katnic thinks backup dancer Amazon Ashley, a six-foot-seven burlesque dancer, twerked better than Miley Cyrus, but didn’t get enough TV time.  “I feel bad for people who had to watch the performance on-camera. It was a spectacle in person,” she said.

The ‘Ratchet’ Style. Katnic’s considered a leader of “ratchet,” a style she described as anywhere from “Lil’ Kim” to “the tranny hooker on Santa Monica Boulevard.” Earl Williams, a producer known as Phunk Dawg, told New York in April that it can also be defined as “cool, sloppy, sleek” and is meant to convey an air of, “‘I’m real. I’m ghetto. I am what I am.'” Miley’s VMAs act was apparently a take on “ratchet,” but to the critics who thought it was racist and disrespectful of her black backup crew, Katnic said, “That’s so demeaning to [the dancers] for somebody to say that…Here they are doing something that’s awesome and fun, and [people] shit on it.”

How to Be Nude and Fully Clothed. To dress the nude models in the “tamer” version of the “Blurred Lines” music video, she designed “’X-ray vision’-inspired plastic garments” that include “sheer tops paired with white raver platform sneakers and gold accessories.”

‘Stoner’ Is The Next Big Style. Katnic thinks activewear could be heading in that direction and recently designed a look with hemp necklaces, saggy shorts, and dreadlocks: “I put athletic socks under rope sandals, and now I’m obsessed with that.”

MORE: Why You’re Still Hearing about Miley Cyrus at the VMAs