Is the Fonz our next style icon? The updated 80s uniform making a comeback

What TV show should I be stealing my style from this spring?

Happy days are here again. This has nothing to do with moving beyond the dumpster-fire state of international affairs we’re now living through; no, we simply mean that cool kids are looking like gender-bending versions of Arthur Fonzarelli (aka the Fonz) from the ’70s sitcom. For those too young to have grown up with reruns, or too old to have a 1977 video clip show up in their social-media feed of Henry Winkler’s Fonzie jumping over a shark (literally) on waterskis, Happy Days was a long-running TV series – it aired from 1974 to ’84 – that celebrated the idealism of the ’50s. As the embodiment of cool, the Fonz wore a uniform of denim jeans, white T-shirt and black leather jacket, while his preppy sidekick, Richie Cunningham, played by legend-in-the-making Ron Howard, popularised the varsity jacket.

Happy Days took viewers back to basics, and today’s celebrities are doing the same thing, it seems – only this time, without the shark. Attending the Dior show at Paris Fashion Week last month, actor Jenna Ortega abandoned her goth-girl image honed in the Netflix series, Wednesday, in favour of a cool, female update of Fonzie’s uniform: denim skirt, black vest, elegant clutch, ladylike heels and mirrored sunglasses. We’re talking maximum rebel attitude.

If this season’s batch of denim skirts, worn so short they could be mistaken for belts, are intimidating, add some masculine energy with tailored jorts or cargo shorts. Just make sure to leave the show’s catchphrase well alone: the expression “Sit on it” probably hasn’t aged as well as Winkler’s leather jacket.

Got a style conundrum? Email damien.woolnough@nine.com.au

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