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Many of Jakarta’s furniture shops are housed behind classical-style facades and filled with conservative designs unlikely to appeal to the tastes of young people looking to make a home for themselves.

ToiMoi, a creative furniture and interior design store based at Kemang Mansion, South Jakarta, aims to provide colorful and quirky alternatives to the more serious offerings on the market at a good price. 

“Our mission is to turn interior goods into everyday works of art,” said Diana Mochdie, co-founder of ToiMoi. 

Along with her friends Kristina Dwi Kurniati and Monica Anas, Diana founded ToiMoi in 2004, taking the name from the French words for “you” and “I.” 

Back then, there were no other stores in the capital specializing in creative interior goods.

Together, the three friends came up with the idea of setting up a hub for local design talent that could serve as both a gallery for their work and a shopfront.

Today, the store regularly receives interns from local art schools wanting to hone their design skills by creating retail interior goods for the store.

“I like to see and nurture aspiring artists,” Diana said. “One of them has been with us from his first sale — Rp 2 million [$230] for an illustration. Now his rate is up to Rp 100 million for some of his clients. It makes me happy to see them grow.”

Diana also has let her own playful taste in art influence the items in the shop, including her penchant for toys, robots and action figures.

Entering ToiMoi’s new store in Kemang — which opened earlier this year after it moved from its previous spot at the Kemang Food Festival — visitors are greeted with a rainbow of color. There are coffee tables decorated with pop-art illustrations, tree-shaped lamp stands, street sign doormats, elephant-shaped wardrobes, colorful bean bags, cushions and mattresses and even bright leather covers for holy books.

Prices range from Rp 45,000 to Rp 11 million — reasonably affordable prices for professionals in their 20s, 30s and 40s.

“Our market has even expanded to teenagers because, as it turns out, they also like our accessories, such as cushions and bags,” Diana said.

ToiMoi also releases special designs for religious holidays. During the recent hajj season, the shop released a set of glasses and coasters featuring Islamic art with modern typography, giving the set a contemporary look.

Diana herself designs pieces for the shop, including jigsaw lamp shades and pop-art coffee tables, or quirky items like doormats featuring pictures of robots.

Popular furniture items in the store include flexible sofa designs, pop-up dining tables and multi-function cabinets.

But the most popular item is their range of brightly colored mattresses, followed by the beanbags, which come in vibrant shades such as bright blue and hot pink.

Most of the products sold at ToiMoi are put together at a workshop at Bampu Apus, East Jakarta. For quality control, Diana always try to keep production within the city limits.

In the past two years, she has also tried to take her designs into a new, more eco-friendly direction, aiming to incorporate principles of sustainable design, using durable local materials like teak timber.

“Now, every time I want to design something, I always imagine what the customer would do with my product after 10 years. Will it still be usable?” Diana said.

Many of the store’s clients request items to be custom-made to suit their tastes, or they commission the store to take care of the complete interior design of their bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, office or studio.

“Most of them know what the designs in ToiMoi look like, so I think they want a complete look,” Diana said, adding that prices for big jobs like those are negotiable.

Since moving to the new store in Kemang Mansion, Diana has not yet found the time or space to set up a gallery for clients to browse design possibilities. Instead, the entire store has been set up as a display room for ToiMoi’s designs.

Diana said the starting point for their designs has always been art. She said it was her passion for art that drove her to explore new ideas, encourage imaginative design and provide something outside of the mainstream.

In the end, she said, ToiMoi is more than simply a concept store — it has also become a creative hub for aspiring designers.

ToiMoi 
The Mansion Kemang
Jl. Kemang Raya No. 27, South Jakarta
 Monday to Sunday, 10 a.m. to midnight 
Tel. 021 7198371 
www.toimoi.co.id