Welcome back to another installment of the Galactic Style Guide, the bimonthly series where we break down the ‘Star Wars aesthetic’ in order to help you create a more authentic ‘outer persona’! In this entry, we’re taking a deep dive into a specific category of gear that plays a major role in creating the GFFA’s uniquely grounded, quasi-militaristic aesthetic – belt pouches! As a great number of Star Wars character designs utilize longer robes or tunics instead of more western/modern shirts and trousers (and thus are are sans pockets), it seems that even the most pedestrian costume designs are routinely festooned with a wide variety of semi-rigid containers for carrying small items!
Due to the great number of onscreen examples, I waffled back and forth for how best to organize and present them all. Eventually, I decided to break them down by real-world source (milsurp vs. non-milsurp) and era (Classic Trilogy vs. Prequels) within these categories. As usual, we’ll close with some important takeaways for those of you who may want to incorporate a pouch or two in your own kit to add some in-universe style points! Let’s begin (as we so often do) on Tatooine!
The first folks we see onscreen wearing military surplus are the Jawas, who set the trend for what follows. Much like the majority of base firearms used for blaster building, the Jawas’ belt gear is comprised of European ammunition pouches and bandoleers drawn from a period of roughly 1890 to 1945 CE.
Farmboy Luke continues our trend of leather Euro milsurp pieces, sporting an interesting trio of belt pouches:
keep reading for more examples of authentic, in-universe belt gear!