Not sure if I'm doing this right, but it looks and feels right. I have the model I'm working on (the dress) in layer 1, and Victoria (all the groups that make up that character) in layer 11. I start, say, with the hip area... move just the hip into layer 12 and make it and layer 1 active. With the dress selected, TAB and with the mouse cursor over the button panel F7... in the Draw section, select Wire for Drawtype and in the Objects and Links section I see:
"OB: LBDress04"
with and 'F' on the drop-down tab... nothing in the Par: box, and an 'Add To Group' button. After selecting the area I want to group and 'p' to detach, move the detached area to another layer and with it selected click that 'Add to Group' button. In this case, it gets named 'Hip'... and so on.
Selecting with the lasso thingie is pretty quick.... - actually, as I get used to Blender, things doooo seem to be getting a bit quicker and more intuitive. The big challenge, as I see it, will be making sure I do my initial subdivide of polygons (and extrusions) correctly, or the item becomes impossible to shape properly. At this point I do the shaping in Subsurf mode, but I will have a look at lattices and see where they might come into play. I have noticed that a 4-sided polygon and a triangle have completely different deformation behaviours and will affect how that body part or clothing item looks. So whilst I accept your compliment, oldSkoolPunk: "nice touch on the wrinkles in the shoulder" it certainly wasn't deliberate or by design. Guess there's a lot of ground to cover with regards to modeling. If you know of any tutes - I've already checked out the ones on Blender.org - that deal with this aspect of modeling, I'd be deeply indebted to you.

Cheers,
Robyn

ps... Thanks to you all for all your feedback!

Monterey/Mint21.x/Win10 - Blender3.x - PP11.3(cm) - Musescore3.6.2

Wir sind gewohnt, daß die Menschen verhöhnen was sie nicht verstehen
[it is clear that humans have contempt for that which they do not understand] 

Metaphor of Chooks