Yesterday evening, amid the midterms’ historic blue sweep, former mayor of Atlanta Keisha Lance Bottoms was elected governor of Georgia—making her the first Democratic governor of Georgia in this millennium and the first Black woman elected governor in United States history.
To celebrate that momentous occasion, Bottoms donned a fuchsia pantsuit with a matching silk shirt underneath designed by Dedrick Thomas of Hideoki Bespoke in Georgia. It was a bright, joyous choice, marking a new chapter in Georgia’s gubernatorial record and reflecting the exuberant energy of the evening overall.
“This campaign was about every community and every corner of Georgia,” Bottoms said in her victory speech at the Marriott Marquis in downtown Atlanta. (She’d been introduced by her daughter, Lennox, wearing a matching pink ensemble.) “No matter who you voted for tonight, I will be a governor for all of Georgia.”
In the decades since Georgia last had a Democratic governor—Roy Barnes, who held the office from 1999 to 2003—monochrome pantsuits have become a working standard for women in government, as in many other professional environments. (And even that was controversial for a time: before 1993, women largely wore dresses or skirts with jackets on the Senate floor.)
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As ever, however, fashion proves itself a powerful storytelling tool. The shocking shade, historically associated with girlhood, was immediately evocative of a new sensibility. In 2025, dozens of congresswomen, led by New Mexico representative and leader of the Democratic Women’s Caucus Teresa Leger Fernández, wore pink to protest policies of President Trump’s that were negatively impacting women across the country. Likewise, beginning in 2020, Florida Rep. Angie Nixon took to wearing the hue almost exclusively—to the point that pink became inextricably intertwined with her public image. The branding was effective: electric pink is shaping up to be the suffragette white of a new generation.
