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Issey Miyake, who built one of Japan’s biggest fashion brands and was known for his boldly sculpted pleated pieces as well as former Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ black turtlenecks, has died. He was 84.

Miyake died August 5 of liver cancer, Miyake Design Office said Tuesday.

Miyake defined an era in Japan’s modern history, reaching stardom in the 1970s among a generation of designers and artists who reached global fame by defining a Japanese vision that was unique from the West.

Miyake’s origami-like pleats transformed usually crass polyester into chic. He also used computer technology in weaving to create apparel. His down-to-earth clothing was meant to celebrate the human body regardless of race, build, size or age.

Miyake even detested being called a fashion designer, choosing not to identify with what he saw as a frivolous, trend-watching, conspicuous consumption.

Again and again, Miyake returned to his basic concept of starting with a single piece of cloth — be it draped, folded, cut or wrapped.

Over the years, he took inspiration from a variety of cultures and societal motifs, as well as everyday items — plastic, rattan, “washi” paper, jute, horsehair, foil, yarn, batik, indigo dyes and wiring.

He sometimes evoked images of Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin or collaborated with Japanese painter Tadanori Yokoo in images of monkeys and foliage in vibrant, psychedelic hues.

He also collaborated with furniture and interior designer Shiro Kuramata, photographer Irving Penn, choreographer and director Maurice Bejart, pottery maker Lucie Rie and Ballet Frankfurt.

In 1992, Miyake was commissioned to design the official Olympic uniform for Lithuania, which had just gained independence from the Soviet Union.

Born in Hiroshima in 1938, Miyake was a star as soon as he hit the European runways. His brown top, which combined the Japanese sewn fabric “sashiko” with raw silk knit, was splashed on the cover of the September 1973 issue of Elle magazine.

Miyake was also a pioneer in gender roles, asking feminist Fusae Ichikawa in the 1970s — when she was in her 80s — to be his model, sending the message that garments must be comfortable and express the natural beauty of real people.

Although he made clothes that went beyond the mundane, appearing to reach for the spiritual, he made a point to never get pretentious, always approving of the T-shirt-and-jeans look.

“Designing is like a living organism in that it pursues what matters for its well-being and continuity,” Miyake once wrote in his book.

His office confirmed a private funeral had been held and other ceremonies will not be held in accordance with Miyake’s wishes. Miyake kept his family life private, and survivors are not known.
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The 72 artifacts that the Horniman museum agreed to return include 12 of the famous Benin Bronzes – symbolic of the ancient Benin Kingdom in southern Nigeria.

The museum said in a statement Sunday it was moral and appropriate to return the artifacts, stating the objects were taken by force during the British military invasion of Nigeria in 1897.

Nigerian authorities have praised the gesture. The National Commission for Museums and Monuments said it is a breakthrough after a meeting with the museum authorities in March this year, and they say they’re looking forward to loan agreements and collaborations with the museum.

Babatunde Adebiyi is a legal director at the museum commission.

“We’re simply very happy for Horniman museums and gardens to have kept their word. They have made a just determination of the issue by returning these antiquities. Some of these antiquities might be loaned to [the] Horniman museum for a period.”

For years Nigeria has been negotiating the return of thousands of looted artefacts to their cultural bases in the southern party of Nigeria.

The antiquities were mostly taken from the palace of the Benin Kingdom during the colonial era.

As more are returned, authorities aim to set up a museum in Benin to store them, says Adebiyi.

“We’re proposing and working hard toward having a royal museum in Benin city near the oba’s [king’s] palace. All these things are meant to house these antiquities. Apart from that, museums like the Lagos museum can provide adequate facilities.”

Nigeria center for Liberty’s Ariyo Dare Atoye welcomes the development.

“It’s a good development for arts and culture in our nation, in Africa. It’s a welcome idea that they decided to do this. A lot of people believe this ought to have been done decades ago, It is better late than never. It’s an opportunity to boost our culture and tourism sector.”

Abuja resident, Abdullahi Okugiya also welcomes the move.

“It will add value to our museum. Most of us read (about) it in the books, but we have not actually touched them or seen them.”

In July, German authorities signed an agreement with Nigeria and began the process to return up to 1,100 Benin Bronzes to Nigeria, the most by a European country.

However, Atoye raises concerns about Nigeria’s readiness and expertise to properly manage and preserve these artifacts.

He also calls for monetary compensation, as well.

“What have we benefited from the ones that we have recovered? Ordinarily,,the return of these artifacts ought to have come with [an] apology, number two, with reparation. Money has been made through these artifacts in some of these countries like the UK. If we’re unable to make good use of the ones we’ve recoverd,,even Nigerians will be disinterested in the recovery of the ones leftover in the UK or any part of the world.

Nigeria has more than 50 national museums and authorities are looking to set up more.

Authorities and citizens are hoping the returns trigger more museums around the world to do the same, especially the British museum in London, which holds by far the largest and most significant collection of Nigerian cultural artifacts.
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Serena Williams says she is ready to step away from tennis after winning 23 Grand Slam titles, turning her focus to having another child and her business interests.

“I’m turning 41 this month, and something’s got to give,” Williams wrote in an essay released Tuesday by Vogue magazine.

Williams said she does not like the word retirement and prefers to think of this stage of her life as “evolving away from tennis, toward other things that are important to me.”

Williams is playing this week in Toronto, at a hard-court tournament that leads into the U.S. Open, the year’s last Grand Slam event, which begins in New York on Aug. 29.

The American has won more Grand Slam singles titles in the professional era than any other woman or man. Only one player, Margaret Court, collected more, 24, although she won a portion of hers in the amateur era. 
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Singer Olivia Newton-John, who gained worldwide fame as the high school sweetheart Sandy in the hit movie “Grease,” died Monday after a 30-year battle with cancer. She was 73. 

Newton-John “passed away peacefully at her ranch in Southern California this morning, surrounded by family and friends,” said a statement from her husband John Easterling posted on her official social media accounts. 

The entertainer, whose career spanned more than five decades, devoted much of her time and celebrity to charities after first being diagnosed with breast cancer in 1992. 

The British-born and Australian-raised star dedicated a number of albums and concerts to raise funds for research and early detection of the disease, including the construction of a health center named after her in her adopted home of Melbourne.  

“I don’t like to say ‘battled,'” a defiant Newton-John told Australia’s Channel Seven TV in September 2018, after revealing she had been diagnosed with cancer for a third time.  

“I like to say ‘win over,’ because ‘battled’ sets up this anger and inflammation that you don’t want.” 

‘You’re the one that I want’ 

Newton-John is best-known for starring in the 1978 musical “Grease” alongside John Travolta, as the-girl-next-door Sandy, who trades her ankle-length skirt and prim and proper hair for skin-tight black pants and a perm. 

The high school sweetheart-turned-bad girl resonated with audiences worldwide and continues to capture hearts decades after the movie was released.  

“Making it was fun, but you never know with movies if audiences are going to go with it or not, even if you love it,” she said in a Forbes interview in 2018.  

“It is incredible that it is still going but it’s not even just that, it’s showing no signs of stopping. You say ‘Sandy and Danny’ and people instantly know what you’re talking about.” 

“Grease” remained the highest-grossing musical for three decades, with Newton-John and Travolta maintaining a close relationship long after the film was made. 

“She was my favorite thing about doing ‘Grease,'” Travolta said in an interview to mark the film’s 40 anniversary in 2018. 

There was no one else “in the universe” who could play Sandy, he said of Newton-John, who turned 29 during the making of Grease and later revealed she had to be convinced by Travolta to take up the role after self-doubts that she was too old to play a teenager.  

“If you were a young man in the 70s … if you remember that album cover with Olivia with that blue shirt on, with those big blue eyes staring at you,” Travolta recalled.  

“Every boy’s, every man’s dream was: ‘oh, I would love for that girl to be my girlfriend.'” 

Her career would span from singer and actor to author and philanthropist in the coming decades, with her passion for cancer research at the forefront, championing natural therapies, including medicinal cannabis in the treatment of cancer. 

She performed into her late 60s, until her latest diagnosis, including a two-year residency in Vegas, a 2015 tour with Australian music legend John Farnham and even recording a Club Dance track at 67 with her daughter Chloe Lattanzi. 

“I have done everything, and the icing on the cake as well,” she said, reflecting on her career.  

“So I feel grateful for anything that happens now.” 

 
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