I believe can be done in poser with the grouping tool and the setup room, but it's a bit of a pain and I haven't done it before myself.

1.With the grouping tool create new groups for each body part  (chest, hip, etc). The hard part is getting them to match up properly with your figure's body parts.

2.Go into the setup room and load up V4 or whatever figure you want to use the dress for. This, in the setup room, will load the SKELETON of the figure, not the whole figure itself. What you've just done it given this piece of clothing the same "bones" as your figure, thus allowing it to conform. If your groups are named the same as the various v4 parts, once you go back to the pose room your clothing should now move like the figure.

How would you handle a dress and leg bones? make the dress from the waist down all in the "hip"group. while in the setup room select and delete the leg and toe bones. In face you may want to delete whatever bones you don't need for a dress (head, fingers, hands).

So... That's how I'd do it in theory, though I've never tried it out. I may be missing something, like editing the joints and such. If someone else knows please correct me.

The strong do as they can while the weak do as they must.