*click image for full size*

 

Thank you Shuy! I'm going to try that, even if it doesn't fix this particular dress, it will help me learn what to do for future items like this!

In the meantime I tried the editing constrained group fix in the cloth room, and it sort of works, but some things still break apart.

The above image shows a 30 frame animation. First done with the hip of the conforming dress clothified.  And a second simulation of the skirt after the tops of the ruffles had the soft constrained group edited.  I also adjusted collision offset, collision depth, static friction, dynamic friction, and cloth density (.0001 the lowest).

The next post shows a screen capture pointing out where the pixels separate.

"It is good to see ourselves as others see us. Try as we may, we are never
able to know ourselves fully as we are, especially the evil side of us.
This we can do only if we are not angry with our critics but will take in good
heart whatever they might have to say." - Ghandi