Ode to the Side-Release Buckle

While I currently have several projects on the proverbial back burner–waiting on, among other things, a modeler, a printer, and a blacksmith–I am doing my best to keep the blog from lapsing into content-hiatus. This week, I offer a simple collection of images, centered around the humble side-release buckle. This piece of costume hardware was apparently commonplace throughout the Galaxy, and so would be an appropriate item to include in one’s GFFA kit.
NOTE that all of the characters below whose costumes incorporate a side-release buckle are what we here would consider common–security guards, podrace mechanics, bounty hunters, pilots, and jungle guerillas–and so would be great inspiration to model one’s impression upon!
NOTE also that all of these come from either 32 BBY (Episode I) or 4 ABY (Episode VI). As for an explanation of why we have no evidence of their use from the middle four films, I have only a few ideas . As far as the Prequels go, I believe that as their story begins to focus solely on Major Figures In Galactic History (aka Politicians and prominent Jedi), the everyday galactic citizen is left behind. If we had spent more time with the space-refugees onboard the Jendirian Valley, Cliegg Lars’ Tusken-fighting farmer posse, or…any civilians in Episode III, I would fully expect to see more of these buckles show up in the material record.
As for the Classic Trilogy era, I could say something about Episodes IV and V also revolving around a smaller cast, the local Tatooine culture being less about hardware closures and more about wrapped peasant tunics, or the buckles’ brittleness in cold making them unsuitable for the soldiers on Hoth.
However, there’s a simpler explanation for the SRB’s absence in Episodes IV and V: they didn’t exist yet! As it turns out, the side-release buckle, now so common on backpacking and camping gear, wasn’t invented until 1979–by which point, I believe The Empire Strikes Back would have been well into production. Such occasional intrusions of the real world into fictional settings can be quite fascinating to uncover!

Clockwise from top left:
Naboo Palace Guard (Dressing A Galaxy, 2005), Naboo Security Guard (autographed publicity photo), Mat Rags (DK SW Complete Visual Encyclopedia, 2017), Ishi Tib podrace mechanics (DAG), Ubese bounty hunter disguise (SW Costumes: The Original Trilogy, 2014), Endor strike team commando (ibid.), Mon Calamari pilot (Return of the Jedi deleted scenes/test footage), Rebel Y-/A-/B-wing pilots (SWCOT).

Is there anyone I’ve missed? Leave a comment below and let me know!

ADDENDUM:
I recently tracked down the Ewok TV-movies, and was pleased to see that both Paul Gleason and Wilford Brimley’s characters’ costumes included Side-Release Buckled belts:

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