**ONE-TIME USE ONLY NO ARCHIVE**This photo released by Vogue shows the cover of the September issue.(AP Photo/Vogue,Mario Testino)**NO SALES**

The fashion world’s code word for “make or break” is “the September issue.”

It’s for this issue, the one that launches the all-important fall season, that the top magazines pull out their biggest guns for splashy stories and breathtaking photo shoots, all in an effort to excite consumers browsing glossy pages on their last days at the beach.

“Fall sets the tone more. There’s nothing more different from wearing a bikini in August to buying a coat and looking forward to wearing it,” says Joanna Coles, editor in chief of Marie Claire.

Even though most fashion magazines have readers well beyond their back-to-school days, the mentality lingers. And the fall season is usually a shopper’s biggest fashion financial outlay because the items are substantial and sturdy: coats, boots, suits and dresses, says Sally Singer, Vogue’s fashion news director.

“The September issue is when people plot their wardrobe. It’s the equivalent of a Christmas wish list,” she says.

The September issue of 2007 was Vogue’s biggest in its 117-year history, and it provides the backdrop to RJ Cutler’s new documentary, “The September Issue,” about the inner workings of the fashion bible.

That issue had Sienna Miller on the cover; this year it is Charlize Theron. And September 2009 is no September 2007. Vogue has shrunk, as have all the other biggies, as luxury advertisers pull back during the recession.

Still, Vogue has managed to find many trends to tout, including interesting coats, big hair, decorated faces and over-the-knee boots. It has an interview with South Carolina first lady Jenny Sanford, who likens her husband’s affair to pornography addiction or alcoholism and says it’s up to him “to do the soul-searching” to determine their future.

The big story throughout is Fashion’s Night Out, an Anna Wintour brainchild that aims to get designers and celebrities in stores with consumers on Sept. 10. (Wintour writes that’s she’ll spend the evening at a Macy’s in Queens.)