With a new coffee table book, an art show, and a limited-edition collaboration with Marc Jacobs for Louis Vuitton all out at once, the pop-punk genius of the late Stephen Sprouse shines brighter than ever. Sprouse’s muse, transgender model Teri Toye, has her own opinion regarding how the shy visionary would react to his ascendance to modern legend status. “Stephen Sprouse did not want to be a star,” says Toye, whose elongated frame and deadpan glamour proved a potent inspiration for many a Sprouse Day-Glo ensemble or sleek erogenous cutout. “He just wanted to create. His life was about producing work. He was driven to produce. And if you were his friend, you went along with that.”

Two new photography books shine a light on our country’s unheralded superstars: its gritty folk from the other side of the tracks and its bubbling, super-styled youth subcultures.

The 'Milk' star offers a smarter approach to life and art

"To me, Stephen was kind of a rock and roll Halston,” Marc Jacobs says of Stephen Sprouse, a defining genius of ’80s fashion and art, whose legacy and still-fresh style gets the deluxe picture book treatment (four different Day-Glo covers!) by Rizzoli. Authors Roger and Mauricio Padilha, two of the world’s most voracious collectors of all things Sprouse, were given access to the late icon’s archives by his family for The Stephen Sprouse Book, due out in February, which delineates the wild creative’s life in chapters with titles like “Cyber Punk,” “Future Rave,” “Legend” and “Andy.”

Ever tried to picture Liberace simmering tomato sauce in his boxers? What about Babs with the body of a black Lab? In Sleeveface: Be The Vinyl (Artisan Books, 192 pages), editors Carl Morris and John Rostron have collected images of album covers placed with deliberate and devious accuracy on everything from canines and Chryslers to the guy who drives the Fairfax 417 city bus. Don’t call it a remix.

Having placed his signature touch on everything from the interiors of hotels like the Delano and the Mondrian to toothbrushes and motorcycles, Philippe Starck, France’s Zen master of the modern, diversifies into New York rental apartments, underwear and the first sightseeing shuttle into outer space.

MGMT’s Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser, creators of insanely catchy electropop tunes like “Kids” and “Electric Feel,” give pointers on partying naked, stoned and succumbing to the temptations of cookies and sparkling water.

People that go bump in the night

Keith Richards' daughter dishes w/ desinger Jill Stuart

The fashion god celebrates his 45-year history