@rick @bahi0u I still had to look up just to be sure. But yeah a dress is always a one-piece affair consisting of a torso-piece and the open part waist, which is actually called a skirt. So basically a skirt is technically a dress with the body chopped off.
Though skirts seemed to have existed for longer and then were made into dresses for women according to wiki
only swiss people are being special again: (from the german wiki):
In der Schweiz bezeichnet Rock das einteilige Kleid als solches – ein Kleid bildet dort eine mehrteilige Einheit; der untere Teil (ohne angenähtes Oberteil) wird mit dem französischen Wort Jupe (IPA:ʒyp) bezeichnet.
To translate for poor baihou: in switzerland the word “skirt” is actually used for the one-piece dress. The dress as we know it is a more-piece thingie in switzerland seemingly. They seem to call the thing we would call a skirt a “Jupe”.
Source from wikipedia: the duden.
cc @puniko