"Mother-daughter stripper pole" is a phrase you don't hear often for a reason. Gwyneth Paltrow spends time with another male musician. Howard Stern makes fun of Gabourey Sidibe. Vigilante sorority closes in on Roethlisberger. Wednesday gossip crosses the line.

• Eyebrows are no longer cool, apparently. Time to invest in a new pair of tweezers! [NYT]
• The CFDA and Vogue announced the 2009 Fashion Fund finalists today. [Vogue, Cut]
• Back in May, it was rumored that Stefano Tonchi, editor of the Times' rapidly shrinking T magazine, was heading out the door. Now the rumor is he's taking a top job at Vogue. [FWD]
• No, Baywatch wasn't filming in Soho today. The dudes dressed as lifeguards were promoting the new Hollister store on Broadway and Houston, which officially opened today. [Racked]

• Mayor Bloomberg has pronounced it "Sparkle Week" in NYC as part of an effort to give a boost to the jewelry industry. They sure could use the help: Retailers in the Diamond District report that sales have dropped by more than 50 percent over the past year. [NYM, Crain's]
• Jil Sander's new Madison Avenue store has opened its doors. [Racked]
• Lauren Hutton was injured while surfing a couple of weeks ago, but she's still hoping to make it to the Costume Institute ball. [NYM]
• Is Chloe Sevigny single-handedly trying to bring back the sandals-and-socks look, or was the combo of sun and booze at Coachella to blame? [Frisky, JJ]

• The model-centric cover of the May issue of Vogue—timed to coincide with the model-centric Costume Institute Gala, of course—has been revealed. And for the third month in a row, a black woman (Liya Kebede) makes an appearance. [Style.com, The Cut]
• Oscar de la Renta appeared on The View today to try and dig himself out of the giant PR hole that followed his not-so-sweet comments about Michelle Obama in recent weeks. [Jezebel]
• Speaking of the First Lady, she's added a full-time makeup artist to her traveling entourage, just in case you happen to be keeping tabs on the White House payroll. [NYP]

Depending on your perspective, it's either a reassuring indication that the global recession can't be as bad as all that, or the kind of tasteless display of decadence that no longer has any place in the new economy: Couture fashion week in Paris is currently underway with shows as lavish as ever, even though you'd think that dresses costing a quarter of a million dollars might have a slightly shrinking client base. Dior designer John Galliano, who put on a show yesterday that cost around $3 million, points out that his job "is to make women dream. Of course I'm aware of the credit crunch, but it is not a creative crunch—not at the house of Dior, anyway."

Not that Padma Lakshmi needed any help in ensnaring her next billionaire boyfriend, but this can't hurt: Indian models are apparently the next big thing in the modeling world, an industry that is finally recognizing "their potential and versatility in selling high fashion," reports ABC News. Willowy Brazilians Gisele Bundchen and Adriana Lima? They're so five minutes ago as advertisers and editors book new faces from the subcontinent like September Harper's Bazaar cover girl Kangana Dutta and Ford model Lakshmi Menon, who's been in recent campaigns for Hermes and Givenchy.

Parfums Givenchy, which means "Givenchy Perfumes" in American, has picked Justin Timberlake as the face of its new men's cologne [Off The Rack]. The company president said the poppity pop star "is a world recognized trendsetter who redefines modern elegance." Sure he is. A better thing for Justin to put his face on: