Goal Oriented

There are, no doubt, deep spells of daydreaming when super-famous people imagine vanishing to a place without suffocating fans and unrelenting scrutiny. A place that is, for better and worse, remote, disconnected. But for a particularly fortunate type of global celebrity—someone like, say, Thierry Henry, 36-year-old Frenchman, one-man soccer empire, possibly the game's best player of the '00s—downtown New York City is just that sort of place, an island to hide in plain sight. “So few people recognize me, I can do what anyone does,” he says of his new home. “But New York being New York, and especially in SoHo, where I live”—he picked out a $14.85 million riplex—“you get lots of tourists. They give the European vibe sometimes. You can spot them coming from down the sidewalk.”

Having amassed a résumé with no holes while playing in Europe's most illustrious leagues and cities (London, Barcelona, Monaco), Henry delivered on a self-guarantee to move himself to N.Y.C. In 2010 he joined the fledgling MLS Red Bulls as the pace-setting point around which the offense revolves. At once the heat surrounding his game raised the core temperature of the whole club—his flood of assists are as valuable as his goals—steadily transforming them into a top-tier MLS team.

But when asked if New York has become his number one city, it's another sport—basketball, a preferred topic of American conversation (“I've followed the NBA religiously since I was a kid, and now because of my boy Tony Parker, I'm a huge Spurs fan”)—that provides the most precise metaphor for his response: “You know how Michael Jordan will always be the best athlete ever? How it's so obvious that he's not even on the list? For me, that's London. It's where my daughter was born, where I matured as a man. But when you start the list, that's New York. That's why I'm here.”

The Difference Between Blue and Bleu

Parisian shirtmakers created a color so iconic it got its own spot on the Pantone scale: French blue. It's even become the hue of the French national football team—and is one of the freshest new suit colors for spring.

Suit $3,800, shirt, $1,325, and tie, $195, by Hermès. Folio by Dior Homme.