Not the same thing. I definitely saw a post confirming the experimental skins would be unlocked by the refined armor (a la binding a precursor weapon unlocking the experimental/refined skins); I'll go look for it now.
Edit:
Obtaining a Refined Envoy Armor will unlock the corresponding Experimental Envoy Armor skin, so players wanting to unlock all of these skins will be able to do that by creating the Refined Envoy Armors when they have been unlocked.
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/Legendary-Armor-Information
Ah ok - sorry for the confusion - going to take a look at this and see whats happening here.