Are you watching, or being watched?

Yes, she looks sensational teetering down the red carpet in a gossamer sheath dress on 4.5-inch stilettos. But what do she and the toothy, head-to-toe Viktor & Rolf victim on her arm wear in real life? Now that the economy has been felled with a resounding thud, a comforting truth can be told. When the lensmen aren’t stalking them, stars, and the rest of us -- men in bars, fashionistas in town cars, even state troopers on their own dime -- have at least two pairs of jeans they wear day and night, a beloved assortment of ratty old T-shirts, a stack of tony sweaters and possibly a worn-in leather jacket. It’s a national uniform.

For more than a decade, 44—the Philippe Starck-designed gem within midtown’s Royalton hotel—was the place where the media elite came to light up, swill down, and deep dish. Last fall, it was re-imagined, not to everyone’s liking. Jeffrey Slonim recalls—with help from the iconic establishment’s “royal” subjects—the days when deals were cut over four martinis, bathrooms were theater, and smoking wasn’t a privilege but the norm. ‘Hey, Fran, will ya’ pass the butter?’