September 17, 2006

Morgan & Milo Help You Out In A Tough Kid's Shoe World

Honestly, I had no idea how hard it was to find decent shoes for the kid. It's easy to find cheap shoes, ugly shoes, expensive shoes, and ridiculous shoes, but decent, good-looking, not-exorbitant everyday shoes? Uh-uh.

You know, I'd better start over, because the whole point, of course, is that such shoes are easy to find if they're Morgan & Milo. The kid's on her fourth pair of Morgan & Milo, and they couldn't be better. Except for her Muji mesh sneakers--which I know exactly where to get, it's just on the other side of the world--they're some of her best everyday shoes.

She has just the basics, suede, slightly Chuck Taylor-looking sneakers in a range of colors: chocolate, dark purple, red [OK, it should be called "slightly too red," but still], and now navy. Plus a pair of awesome black boots. We've scored Morgan & Milo for $20/pair at Nordstrom's Racks, but now that we know how well they perform, the full price--$35 to about $50 or so for the serious boots--doesn't seem unreasonable.

Morgan & Milo was started a couple of years ago by Mia Abbruzzese, a former product designer at Stride Rite, and I think she's really hit a sweet spot in the market. If anyone has a POV on these kicks, pro or con, definitely chime in.

Babystyle has Morgan & Milo sneakers for $36. [babystyle.com]
Also, Zappos.com has a bunch of other styles, and there's always a range of new Morgan & Milos on eBay, though size/selection always varies. But whaddya expect, dude, it's eBay.

Related: See Kai Run is another indie brand of well-liked shoes, especially for the first slightly stiff-soled early walkers.

7 Comments

I found Morgan & Milos at Marshall's for $15 and got a cute pair of canvas/leather sneaks for Noisette...then was shopping there again two weeks later and all of it was on sale. I got a second pair a size larger for $7.50! I spent another $7.50 for a pair for Noisette's brother Rufus...even though he won't be walking for another 6 months. Good stuff!

Suede is awesome, but we need coolish outdoor rainy-day shoes. Morgan and Milo falls short in that department.

Also, I'd mention that Milo got hosed. He gets 3 pair to choose from while Morgan gets about a thousand (I was too lazy to scroll, but scrolling isn't required for the boys).

[good point, and I think we're buying Milos for the girl anyway. there ARE non-suede options, though, too. -ed.]

We got some See Kai Runs (the "sadie") from the interweb but they are alas far too big, width-wise. They'd be great for kids with wide feet.

I have to agree with you on the M&M's. My 5 year old has the Morgan and Milo mary-janes in brown suede...and they rock! So far they've survived 3 months of sandbox play and toe dragging (agggh!). Got mine at Zappos (they've since sold out of this style, but found them at Growing Up Garnet Hill). BTW - have you looked into Gucio boots. I got a pair for my son to try out and they're working out well. They come in a variety of colors (including chocolate brown and navy) and the lacebiters make installation a breeze.

I wish this had been posted a week ago when I was struggling to find my 20 month old daughter nice comfortable shoes that weren't obsessively girly. (Why, oh why, are so many toddler girl shoes pink, purple, sparkly and horrible combinations of those, or, worse, covered in Barbie logos?) It doesn't help that she's still in infant sizes but has wide feet.

I ended up with minimally pink-accented Sketchers mary janes and plain brown Merrell Junior Crocs, shoes just like Mama and Daddy's.

Now I guess I have to give away our local shoe secret. We saw a friend with some awesome shoes from Livie & Luca, and then we got them in orange and red for our twins, and since then we get asked all the time. M&M didn't have any in our size yet, but I dig them too.

Livie and Luca

[ah, a giant ploy to appear before Morgan and Milo in the shoe company listings. very sly -ed.]

oh yeah, and there was a really interesting article about them, a Boston company. woo Boston!

From boston.com

Stride Rite sells itself as the ONLY place to get kid's shoes, so it is nice to see alternatives.

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