Isaac Kong and Pamela Theng quit their corporate jobs to fix soft toys for a living
Clarissa Wiyono did not fly from Jakarta to Singapore to sightsee.
The 29-year-old made the trip specifically to drop off her Dumbo plushie—a 50cm elephant toy she had carried since her visit to Disneyland Orlando through her wedding and across countless flights abroad—at a restoration service she could not find back home.
She did not trust couriers. She came herself.
This is the kind of customer Isaac Kong and Pamela Theng, both 54, have come to know well.
The husband-and-wife pair are the “surgeons” behind Toy Doctor, a soft toy restoration service that officially opened on Feb 28 this year at Mandai Wildlife Reserve, near the Singapore Zoo.
It is, by most measures, an unlikely place for such a business. But the couple, who have spent three decades sewing, stuffing, and salvaging plushies, are used to raised eyebrows.
“Some people still get shocked when I tell them what I do professionally,” said Isaac.
They’ve crafted & mended soft toys for decades
Isaac and Pamela’s story starts at Fort Canning Park.
In 1996, the couple attended a soft toy picnic—an event showcasing the work of teddy bear artists. Drawn in by what they saw, they bought books and taught themselves the craft from scratch.
What began as a hobby gradually grew into a side hustle alongside their corporate careers. For years, Isaac and Pamela had crafted teddy bears, but specialised repair wasn’t part of the picture.
That changed when a stranger found their website and asked if they could mend a tear on her cat plushie. To Isaac and Pamela, it seemed straightforward enough. The plushie just required sewing.
What they didn’t anticipate was what came next: the customer blogged about her experience, enquiries poured in, and the couple recognised a gap in the market nobody else was filling.
Thus, Soft Toy Hospital launched in 2016, operating out of their five-room HDB flat in Jurong.
Over the years that followed, they cleaned, repaired, or replicated thousands of toys. They left their corporate jobs—Pamela had worked in administration in the engineering sector, while Isaac’s background was in healthcare operations—to run the service full-time.
When Mandai Wildlife Group approached them, the couple saw an alignment they hadn’t expected. “We never expected an organisation focused on animal conservation to approach us, but we share the same value: sustainability,” said Isaac in an interview with the Straits Times.
For Mandai, the fit made commercial sense too. Soft toys are among the top-selling items across the group’s park gift shops, frequently bought as souvenirs of a family’s day out or a child’s first encounter with a favourite animal.
The work is more involved than it looks
At Toy Doctor, a deep clean and restuffing for a toy under 35cm tall starts at S$110. Mending a tear can range from S$10 to S$250, while other repairs, such as replacing eyes or a nose, are priced between S$80 and S$200.
The prices may seem steep, but the work is more involved than it looks.
Each toy that comes in goes through a meticulous, multi-day process. They are cleaned by hand and left to air-dry for three to five days before restuffing begins. Electric dryers are off the table entirely.
Beyond cleaning, Toy Doctor also offers cloning, where a new toy is built from scratch to replicate one beyond saving.
Cloning is the most labour-intensive, sometimes taking months. The hardest part is tracking down the exact original materials. Owners are rarely open to substitutes, and the team rarely blames them.
“You can buy a new toy,” Isaac said, “but you cannot buy the memories linked to the original.”
It’s something that Isaac and Pamela have come to realise, after years in the trade. Their most important tool isn’t a needle or thread—it’s empathy.
“You have to be able to put yourself in the customer’s shoes and truly listen,” said Isaac. “Most of the time, they aren’t looking for the toy to look brand new or perfect. We have to follow their lead and respect their unique connection to the plushie.”
Pamela puts it plainly: “As time goes by, we’ve realised we aren’t just fixing toys. We’re healing hearts.”
That means managing expectations, too. Isaac recalls one customer who wanted her chou chou cleaned—but without losing its smell. Some requests, however emotionally valid, are physically impossible. Knowing how to navigate those conversations is a skill in itself, and one they hope to pass on.
Nuturing the next generation of “toy doctors”
Isaac and Pamela aren’t getting any younger—and they know it.
“We can’t keep doing this until our hands are shaking,” Isaac said. “We wish to nurture the next generation of ‘toy doctors’ to carry the torch.”
With Mandai Wildlife Group’s backing, the couple hopes to professionalise the industry, including building a proper academy for professional soft toy restoration that goes beyond technical skills.
For now, the couple runs educational workshops at the Toy Doctor space, where visitors can explore what plushies are made of, stuff a toy, and take it home. They also get to learn about recycling, restoring and various filling materials, from soft polyester to microfoam beads, during these sessions.
Their dream is for Singapore to one day develop a culture of repair like Japan, where broken things, from ceramics to vintage bags to plushies, are routinely given second lives rather than thrown away.
Toy Doctor is open at Mandai Wildlife Reserve. And if you’ve got a lumpy, greying, beloved old friend at home who’s seen better days—Dr Isaac and Dr Pamela are in.
- Find out more about Toy Doctor here.
- Read other articles we’ve written on Singaporean businesses here.
Featured Image Credit: Mandai Wildlife Group