In his Panopticon writings from 1787, philosopher Jeremy Bentham described a prison with a column serving as an all-seeing eye at its center. Inmates lived in constant fear, aware of the possibility that they were being watched at all times—that, as George Orwell wrote of Big Brother in his prescient 1984, “Every sound… was overheard and except in darkness, every moment scrutinized.”

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?’

The entrance to the Royalton remains the same.

It is seven minutes and counting before Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour’s reservation at 44 in the Royalton hotel, circa 1994. Akhmed steams a screaming-fresh cappuccino and cranes toward the entrance. No Wintour. He sets the first porcelain cup aside and blasts another. Again, Akhmed scans the blue carpet with a stripe of white flourishes down one side. The frothy cappuccino is recast over and over until he glimpses Wintour. She takes her seat and greets guests. Exactly then, he sets the final, brutally warm cappuccino at her banquette.