But for me, at least, the jacket is, like Phee said, armor It’s more a symbol of what is wrong with Emma, her insecurities being hidden behind a tough outer shell, some impenetrable that no one can breech.
No need to take my word for it, here’s where JMo herself said it…
Has her Emma Swan finally ditched the leather jacket for some fantasy duds? “Not yet! I’m still in that leather jacket,” Morrison told us at Bloomingdale’s in New York, where she unveiled the store’s Once-inspired window display. Not that she minds, considering she helped pick out the trademark piece. “Balmain had a beautiful rust-colored jacket then that I kept seeing in their ads. We wanted a leather jacket, because [we thought it would be] like armor protecting her, but black was too Evil Queen-ish. So I asked, ‘What if we do red?’”
http://news.instyle.com/2012/09/30/once-upon-a-time-jennifer-morrison/
What made her reach for her jacket was Neal, the idea of opening up those wounds again. Because once you start, you’re never going to stop. Once you go down that path (one of many paths as my OTP declared in their own little party scene *insert happy sigh here*) it’s you’re future. And I think that’s really frightening for Emma, that she can have the future she’s always wanted. She can have Tallahassee.
YES!
BTW, here’s that gifset I mentioned in my previous post…
