For those who do not know, pilling is the eventual formation of fuzzy, lint-like balls on the surface of a fabric due to the intertwining of broken or loose fibers.  It is not unique to wool (e.g., low thread-count cotton is particularly suspect to pilling).

You can pretty much avoid pilling altogether by purchasing garments that use higher quality fabrics.  If you don’t have the coin to take such a measure, then (1) start washing any item you suspect may pill inside-out on a gentler rotation and (2) line dry.  Both (1) and (2) above will cause less agitation and abrasion to your clothes and thus less pilling.  Derek from Die, Workwear fame recently wrote an article for his other gig at Put This On about a similar subject.  And although he did not mention pilling, he hit the nail on the head: heat is the enemy (well that and Al-Qaeda; funny how Derek didn’t mention Al-Qaeda, either).

And that brings us to pill-removal.  There are two options: straight razor or lint shaver.  If you don’t have steady hands, this one’s a no brainer: treat yo self and spring for the lint shaver.  Cheers.

Edit: Shout out to Evolving Style for noting that Jesse at Put This On actually did cover this topic once before.  And to be clear, I Google imaged “pilling”—did not intend to rip the fabric photo from PTO.