Twice a year, Fifth Avenue addicts and shopping enthusiasts across the world unlatch their fingers from the pages of Vogue and spend a month devouring the latest pieces unveiled by their favorite designers.

This global phenomenon is dictated by four major fashion capitals of the world: New York, London, Milan, and Paris. Each city is allotted about a week, during which designers reveal their pieces for the upcoming season.

Well known designers from New York include Marc Jacobs, Tory Burch, Diane von Furstenberg, and Vera Wang. Burberry Prorsum and Tom Ford are just two designers of many that hold shows during London Fashion Week. Milan Fashion Week attracts lovers of Versace, Prada, and Moschino, while Paris Fashion Week highlights Valentino, Elie Saab, and Louis Vuitton.

The first Fashion Week, then referred to as “Press Week”, was held at the Plaza Hotel, New York City in 1943. While their husbands were fighting in World War II, American women joined the workforce and began to earn money for themselves. The government encouraged women to purchase American-made clothes, but they did not quite meet women’s expectations of quality as compared to those produced in Europe. Publicist Eleanor Lambert was hired to facilitate Press Week as a way to show the American women pieces made available to them by their own country.

Today, Fashion Week not only impacts the fashion world, but the economic one as well. Time magazine reported that New York Fashion Week, for example, generates $733 million annually.

One fashion show can cost anywhere from $200,000 to $1 million. As Fashionista, a popular fashion website, reported, the fall 2011 Marc Jacobs show “cost at least $1,000,000 (or $1,750 per second).” This price tag can include expenses such as the renting a venue, hiring makeup artists and models, and ensuring that well-known celebrities sit front row.

The Manhattan-based event consists of over 270 different shows and presentations, 90 of which are at Lincoln Center alone. Over 100,000 people attend, excluding journalists, photographers, and other media.

Fashion Week may seem like an unnecessarily large production to those who do not care for the runways and lookbooks, but for those who get pumps of adrenaline from peeling open the first pages of Vogue, Fashion Week is the twice annual solstice of the fashion world.