Cityfile: New York's Most Notable and Influential

• The September issue of Harper's Bazaar features Susan Boyle in her first-ever fashion shoot. More importantly, Gossip Girl's Leighton Meester, who appears on the cover of the issue, shoots down the recent rumors that she took part in a sex tape. [Harper's Bazaar, Us]
• Rodarte's Laura and Kate Mulleavy will be designing a line for Target as part of its Go International series. Sweet. [WWD]
• Roberto Cavalli appears to have changed his mind for about the 20th time and decided against selling a stake in his company. [Reuters]  More

• Christian Lacroix saved? Possibly! Although Lacroix is keeping mum, a bidder for the struggling fashion house may have emerged. [WWD, Reuters]
• More depressing news about the state of the retail: Manhattan's vacancy rate is 6.5% and rising. [NYT]
• Ashley and Mary-Kate Olsen are on the list of the 31 new inductees into the Council of Fashion Designers of America. Like, congrats! [FWD, Cut]
• Hermès reports sales were up 12% during the second quarter. If you've continued to shop there despite the downturn, don't pat yourself on the back. Credit the strong sales of Kelly purses in Asia. [BN]
• It's bad news all around for fashion magazines this September. Ad pages in W are down 53% from last year; Allure has witnessed a 52% drop-off; Vogue is down 37%; and Elle has experienced a 21% decline. [AdAge]
• Rumor has it reality TV star/train wreck Susan Boyle is posing for a Harper's Bazaar photo shoot. The good news? She won't be on the cover. [DM]

• Bad news for NBC Universal: second-quarter profits dropped by 41%. [MW]
• Good news for NBC News: Susan Boyle's first in-depth TV interview will take place with Meredith Vieira on the Today show next Wednesday. [NYT]
• Alpha Media, the company that owns Maxim (and used to own Blender and Stuff)—and which was sold to Steve Rattner's Quadrangle Group in 2007—has changed hands again: Steve Feinberg's Cerberus now runs the show. [NYP]
• Rumor has it Pamela Fiori may be leaving Town & Country. [P6]
• Bonnie Fuller is taking over Hollywood Life, the website controlled by Jay Penske, who owns Movieline and recently bought out Nikki Finke. [NYT]
• More Finke: Days after the LA Times ran an article on Hollywood's most powerful blogger comes pretty much the same piece in the NY Times. [NYT]
• All that bad press for CNBC a few months ago must have refocused the network on the things that matter, right? Nope. [Gawker, Zero Hedge]More

• Stylist Pat Field may not take part in the Sex and the City sequel—it seems she can't bear the idea of Carrie Bradshaw going from "fashionista to recessionista." But she does have a bit of advice for Susan Boyle, which is nice. [Grazia]
• The return to scarcity: Saks and Neiman Marcus report they're ordering a lot less inventory than they did last year, not surprisingly. [Bloomberg]
• The Rachel Zoe Project returns to the air on August 25. [Fashionologie] More

• The owner of M2, the club formerly known as Crobar and Mansion, says he may sue Beyoncé now that she appears to be backing out of a deal to perform at the club for $200K. [P6]
• It's been nearly 10 months since Jeremy Piven put a deadly piece of fish in his mouth and the sudden onset of mercury poisoning forced him to drop out of a Broadway show and seek medical treatment. He's feeling much, much better now, he'd like you to know. And he's still sticking to that fishy story about fish, evidently. [People]
• During a recent concert in Manchester recently, Britney Spears shouted out, "What's up, London," a line that did not go over well with the crowd. [Sun]
• Jennifer Love Hewitt is writing a relationship advice book. The secret to landing sweet, charming men like Carson Daly and John Mayer: coming soon to bookstores everywhere! [People]More

• The father of Mercy James, the girl being adopted by Madonna, says he has no plans to object to the adoption, and a nanny and nurse have already touched down in Malawi to take care of her. So it looks like the little girl will be climbing aboard Madonna's jet to head to NYC any day now. [Reuters, DM, Sun]
• David Carradine's funeral took place in LA on Saturday and more than 400 mourners turned up for the occasion, including Lucy Liu, Michael Madsen, Jane Seymour, Tom Selleck, Daryl Hannah, Lucy Liu, Edward James Olmos, and Rob Schneider. [Us, AP, People]
• Jeff Goldblum, who is 56, and his new girlfriend, 21-year-old Lost actress Tania Raymonde, "can't keep their hands to themselves," which may explain why they've been seen "making out all over town." [AMNY]

• Madonna's backup dancers haven't been making friends at the Bryant Park Hotel. Reports a staffer: "They are presumptuous and cheap. Nearly every one of them have stiffed their bellman and servers, and what's worse is they have tons of stuff." [P6]
• The situations continues to deteriorate for Lindsay Lohan: She's rumored to be pawning jewelry to pay the bills. [Star via Popcrunch]
• Britney intends to "drop by Buckingham Palace" and say hi to the Queen when she's in London, which is awfully generous of her, isn't it? [Mirror]
• The circumstances surrounding David Carradine's death are still a little murky. Suicide? Sex-related accidental death? The investigation is still underway. [People, Us, TMZ]

• The romance between Kate Hudson and Alex Rodriguez is heating up. How does People know this? Well, A-Rod supposedly introduced Kate to some of his friends and Kate has been telling people she's a baseball fan, so it's pretty obvious, no? [People]
• Kimora Lee Simmons and Djimon Hounsou have come up with a name for their new baby: He's Kenzo Lee Hounsou, in honor of the Japanese designer by the same name. [P6]
• A woman is claiming she was attacked and left "crippled" by Sacha Baron Cohen (playing the role of Bruno) in 2007. [TMZ]
• Eminem had thousands of dollars worth of items stolen from his L.A. hotel room on Sunday night, including his diamond necklace and laptop. [NYDN]More

• Kimora Lee Simmons and Djimon Hounsou had a baby boy over the weekend. [Us]
• Susan Boyle checked into a clinic on Saturday after suffering a "mental breakdown" following her loss on Britain's Got Talent. [NYDN, NYP]
• Kate Hudson successfully avoided Madonna at Saturday's polo match, which is a good thing since an encounter could have led to a "girl-on-girl showdown." [NYDN]
• Bill and Hillary are househunting, apparently. Per a friend: "There are some really massive estates that are incredibly cheap. Plus, it's a fun way to spend a weekend." [NYDN]
• As for Barack and Michelle, they spent Saturday in NYC, eating at Blue Hill before attending a performance of Joe Turner's Come and Gone. [NYDN, NYT]
• Eminem stormed out of the MTV Movie Awards after Sasha Baron Cohen landed in his lap, either because he was offended or because it was part of a pre-planned stunt. [P6, NYDN]
• Billy Bob Thornton's daughter has been arrested for child neglect. [People]
• Rumor has it Jennifer Hudson is pregnant. [People]

• Did Beyoncé really send a look-alike to stand in for her at an art museum in Vienna so she could go shopping instead? That's what many Austrians seem to think, and the museum now says it plans to issue a protest. And here we were thinking decoy body doubles were just for presidents and mafia kingpins. [AFP]
• James Gandolfini erupted at a group of paparazzi outside the Waverly Inn the other night. Fortunately—for the drama-loving masses, at least—they kept their cameras on during the episode and it was all caught on tape. [TMZ]
• Real-life roommates Chace Crawford and Ed Westwick might be splitting up, since Chace is reportedly looking for a loft of his own downtown. [P6]
• Mel Gibson and Russian singer Oksana Grigorieva made their first public appearance together last night at an X-Men screening in LA. [People]
• Strippers at Sapphire East's opening were supposedly told not to take their clothes off until after Samantha Ronson finished her set, since she's "so girl-crazy, she can't concentrate." [P6]
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