Do the 'Spyfall' scandal women maybe need makeovers?

• All eyes are on them
• Va-va-voom vs. the matronly look
• Bright colors, tight fit, short skirts abound

Amid the national clucking over Washington's "Spyfall" scandal, the question that keeps coming up about the men involved is "What were they thinking?" But the question heard about the women is, "Oy, what is that they're wearing?"

Pepto pink dress and metallic gold pumps? Halter top suitable for clubbing? A haircut untouched by stylists' shears? Canary yellow? Really?

The women of Spyfall have been widely mocked in the media and on the Internet. They've been compared to the Kardashians, and not in a good way. The Daily Beast ran a photo gallery suggesting that one of the women dresses exactly like the flamboyant shrews of the Real Housewives shows.

"There's a lot of judgment coming down on them for their behavior so I don't think wearing bright, revealing, almost cheap clothing is so good if you're trying to say you want to be left alone," says Katrina Mitzeliotis, fashion director of Hollywood Life. "You have to take into account that now all eyes are on you."

On the other hand, "The stylistic stereotypes whirling around in the affair are as old as time, and deeply unfair to women," scolds the Daily Beast's style columnist, Pulitzer Prize-winning Robin Givhan.

And anyway, their style is not that bad, Givhan and other style experts say. Or at any rate, they can easily be improved by the right stylist.

"Everyone needs a makeover," says Erwin Gomez, 47, a Washington makeup artist/stylist who has painted up both Hollywood and political types and got dragged into an earlier scandal when he did the makeup of the White House party-crasher before she sneaked in to President Obama's first state dinner.

But the Spyfall women are not trampy, he says. "It's not fair at all, it's a very, very strong word," he says. "Anyway, who isn't a tramp? Everyone has their trampy side."

As we are learning. The sex scandal that has consumed Washington for the past week has already chewed up and spit out CIA director and retired hero Gen. David Petraeus, and now threatens the future of Gen. John Allen, who replaced Petraeus running the war in Afghanistan and whose nomination to head NATO forces has been put on hold.

Petraeus, 60, resigned from the CIA last week after admitting to an extramarital affair with Paula Broadwell, 40, an Army Reserve lieutenant colonel and co-author of an admiring biography of Petraeus. Said affair came to light because of e-mails Broadwell sent to another Petraeus friend, Jill Kelley, 37, a Tampa socialite and military groupie, who also exchanged tens of thousands of pages of flirty emails with Allen.

Plus, Jill's twin sister, Natalie Khawam, described by the judge in her messy child custody case as delusional, a liar and unstable, somehow got both Petraeus and Allen to submit letters to the court vouching for her maturity, integrity and maternal feeling. (It didn't work.) The twins tend to stand out: According to New York, they once appeared on a Food Network cooking competition show (they cooked alligator) dressed in outfits that included Chanel, Gucci and Brooks Brothers.

And then there's Holly Petraeus, 59, the general's wife and an important Pentagon official, who's shorter, grayer, broader and way less va-va-voom than the busty other women in this confounding and confusing tale. .

As Americans struggled to keep up (and keep a straight face), they have yet to hear a word from any of the women involved. Instead, they have a handful of pictures to examine, and some of them are not good.

Surely the worst had to be Kelley, pictured at a party with her husband and Holly Petraeus, wearing a gray mini dress that, thanks to her prominent chest, barely covered her and ended up looking, at least in the photo, like an old, shorty nightgown.

Such unflattering attire sends the wrong message even in hindsight, says Mitzeliotis. "These wardrobe choices are very telling — they speak volumes even if (the women) aren't," she says.

Since her name surfaced in the scandal, Kelley has been snapped coming out of her house in Tampa in brightly-colored, figure-hugging sheath dresses, including a hot pink number she wore with sparkly, shiny gold pumps. "Hideous," Gomez mutters. "Those colors don't go together."

Plus, he says, V-necks, not square necks, are best for women with big chests, canary yellow is wrong for women with Middle Eastern skin color (the twins are Lebanese), and dark lipstick is wrong for women with thin lips. Still, he thinks her smoky eye makeup works.

"I can see why any guy would find her attractive," he says.

Givhan goes even further in Kelley's defense. "She has been dismissed as little more than a social-climbing airhead. Why? She is an attractive woman with raven hair and a curvaceous figure that she knows how to flatter with body-friendly dresses in cheerful colors. She would be the 'after' in any makeover story," she wrote in her column Thursday.

Broadwell's style ranges from tweedy Capitol Hill-conservative to club fare, such as the ruffled halter top, revealing her toned shoulders and arms, that she wore on Jon Stewart's Daily Show in January where she flogged her Petraeus bio.

Gomez says her outfit looked "very now" on TV but she needs to do something about her hair, which she usually wears pulled back tightly. "She needs more bangs, her hair needs to be down and softer," he says. "She has a big forehead so she needs to cover that."

Givhan approves of her style in cocktail attire, "one in which her muscular arms are bared, but not her cleavage. The choice suggests a woman with a modern definition of femininity, one in which power, swagger and prettiness easily co-exist. Sex appeal is redefined."

As for dowdy Holly Petraeus, Givhan says she's a woman who has opted not to chase glamour or to kow-tow to fashion. "With her efficient bob, her practical spectacles and her matronly wardrobe, Mrs. Petraeus is a reassuring presence rather than a competitive one."

Gomez says he feels sympathy for her. "Does she need a makeover? Definitely, majorly, top to bottom. And absolutely it's possible to make her look good. Everyone has natural beauty."