I try to buy the Umi brand shoes whenever they are seriously discounted (which is often on amazon). These are great little shoes. They are well made, cute, have incredibly flexible soles that still provide excellent traction (for both crawling and walking) and they stay on. There isn't much more you can ask of an infant/toddler shoe. They do tend to run a bit wide compared to many other brands but this works well for our daughter and it should work well for most babies in cooler weather when you put them in thicker socks.

We've been passing along the ones our daughter grows out of to two other little girls and they've held up through all three babies incredibly well. Periodically I find a loose thread but it doesn't seem to damage the integrity or appearance of the shoes and I just cut them off. We generally buy the all leather styles but we did purchase the black velvet shoes and they are designed so that the velvet doesn't show wear. All of the places that tend to rub are leather. The lighter colors of leather do tend to scuff and show dirt but you can clean them fairly easily if it bothers you.

We've purchased other shoe brands for our daughter but so far they just haven't compared in quality and functionality (even if they are cute).