For Theo and Camille Sandico, the founders of Penny Pairs and Moai, building businesses has always been about human connection and discovering what matters along the way.
It’s a sunny weekday afternoon on Perea Street in Legazpi Village. A little neighborhood cafe hums with quiet energy. At the coffee counter, a friendly barista pulls espresso shots. Shelves are lined with quaint, artistic finds: small label clothing brands, prints, notebooks, jewelry, and trinkets. Customers browse slowly, picking things up, setting them down, discovering something new in the process.
Moai Cafe and Concept Store is named after the Okinawan tradition of circles gathering for a shared purpose. Over matcha and bites, Theo and Camille Sandico mention a new restaurant that just opened down the street. “We should add that to the map,” Camille says, turning to someone from their team. They’re working on a neighborhood guide: places to shop, eat, and find comfort in the area. The guide itself is an expression of Moai’s purpose: bringing the community together through discovery. It’s meant to stay small, rooted, intimate. A true neighborhood spot.
On the surface, that seems quite a different trajectory from Penny Pairs, the jewelry brand Theo and Camille built together. Penny Pairs has grown with impressive scale in ways Moai never will. And that’s with intention. Penny Pairs now has multiple retail locations, a full team, and collaborations with Universal Studios. Moai, on the other hand, will remain just this one space.
“The main thing that unifies our businesses is the human connection,” Camille shares with Lifestyle Asia. With Penny Pairs, clients have shared that those seemingly small accessories, added as a last touch before they leave the door to take on the day, make them feel confident, put together, and even empowered. At Moai, the couple recreates that sense of discovery and intention. Customers can find something meaningful in something seemingly small, whether it’s a cup of coffee that makes your morning feel special, a delightful conversation catching up with an old friend, or a cute top that feels just right.
“With our brands, we’re able to connect over daily interactions, our love for well-made, beautiful things, and how these add something meaningful to our lives,” Camille continues. “It gives us a lot of fulfillment to be able to connect in this way.” It’s a philosophy that grew from humble beginnings, when it was just the two of them.
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Small Things, Big Moments
“The idea behind Penny Pairs was simple,” says Camille. “At the time, there weren’t many options for mid-priced jewelry that was hypoallergenic and reliable. It came from my own personal problem, which I knew a lot of women could relate to.”
By “at the time,” she means roughly eight years ago, in 2018, when she and Theo, still just dating, decided to make a bold decision and create the solution. Penny Pairs launched as just the two of them, working side by side. For five years, the brand existed purely online. Then, in 2023, they opened their first retail space.
“Meeting customers, being able to connect in person, really changed the way our brand works and operates,” Camille says. “It really made a difference for us to be able to get to know our customers on a deeper level.”
Since then, Penny Pairs has expanded with retail spaces around Metro Manila, while maintaining its strong digital presence. In recent years, Penny Pairs reached another milestone: collaborations with Universal Studios for their properties, first for the film Barbie, then Wicked.
The couple shares that, for the partnership, the Universal Studios team sent someone to audit their factory. It was a rigorous process, but ultimately confirmed that they were operating at global standards. This was a major validation for the brand. What started as a two-person team had become something that could stand alongside international names. But the more meaningful measure of success was what customers tell them about how the jewelry makes them feel.
“The Universal team mentioned that they felt Wicked would be a fit for our brand, and we agreed,” Camille says. “With Wicked, the story is all about being true to yourself and who you are. It’s about being comfortable and confident in your own skin.”
“We learned from our customers that the reason why they love to wear Penny Pairs is that wearing our jewelry makes them feel confident and empowered, and we try to keep that in mind in everything we do,” she adds. “It gives us so much fulfillment to know we’re there for them, not only during the big moments of their lives, like weddings and milestones, but also for small, everyday moments, where they choose to shine in their daily activities, like work or caring for their families.”
Moai, A Space For Discovery
Through the years of running Penny Pairs, particularly after opening their first physical space, Theo and Camille discovered a passion for retail. We can even say they discovered a passion for discovery itself. The way finding something unexpectedly can shift your mood, your day, or how you see yourself. While Penny Pairs started as a solution to a practical problem, its philosophy expanded to include how the pieces made people feel.
Moai follows a similar philosophy. It’s about creating moments of discovery that feel meaningful. So while Penny Pairs continues to grow and expand, the Sandicos opened Moai as a separate expression of that belief, a space designed to stay small and rooted in the neighborhood.
“One thing we wanted to give our customers is the feeling of discovery,” Camille says. “The feeling that you’ve found a new cafe or a new clothing brand, a new art piece, or an object for your home. Whether for yourself, a friend, or a family member. These days, discovery is mostly done online through social media. But we want to be able to give people that feeling in real life.”
The curation at Moai is deliberate. Every brand they carry, every product on the shelves, shares a common thread: they’re well-made, and made with intention. And that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily expensive. “Something as small as a cup of coffee or a glass of natural wine could be well made and yet accessible,” Camille explains. “The goal is to make these things easily accessible to our community.”
They work with like-minded partners, who are passionate about what they do and good at it, too. For coffee, they partnered with Standard Supply and Yardstick, known in the industry for excellent service and attention to detail. Their matcha comes from Moonbug Matcha, sourced from Shizuoka, Japan, with a unique umami- sweet flavor profile that aligns with the Filipino palate. Their bites are handled by Sunday Street Co, who prioritize local produce, including katmon from one of the co-founding chef’s own garden.
They also give brands without physical retail spaces an opportunity to connect with customers in person. It’s a way of supporting small brands the way Penny Pairs once was. “There are so many amazing people and brands creating great products out there,” Camille says. The store carries small-label clothing, homewares, prints, objects—things that deserve to be seen and touched, not just scrolled past.
Moai is meant to remain what it is: a neighborhood spot where discovery happens slowly, intentionally, the way it did when it was just Theo and Camille figuring things out together.
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Two Becomes More
People always ask if they fight. “The answer is yes,” they admit, matter-of-factly. Arguments are inevitable when running a business, especially when you’re building it with your partner. But Theo and Camille have learned to navigate that tension by keeping their focus on what matters.
“We always select outcome over ego,” Camille says. It’s a simple principle, but it works. They remind themselves that in the end, they want the same thing: to build one of the best brands in the Philippines, maybe even the world. When disagreements arise, that shared vision keeps them grounded.
There’s significant overlap in their roles because they’re hands-on with many parts of the business. But they see having two leaders as an advantage. More gets done, and they bring different perspectives to the table. As a couple, they’re different enough to challenge each other’s ideas, but aligned enough in their values and vision that it ultimately works.
In many ways, their relationship operates on the same principle as their businesses: constant discovery. Discovering how to work together, what works, and what doesn’t. Just as their customers discover confidence through Penny Pairs or discover a new favorite brand at Moai, Theo and Camille continue discovering what it means to build something together. As Penny Pairs expanded from that initial two-person team with an online storefront into a company with employees and multiple retail locations, they stayed intentional about maintaining the values that made it work in the first place.
That same spirit of discovery extends to how they find inspiration. “We enjoy traveling, immersing ourselves in different cultures and cuisines. We walk or run around a lot, and we’re able to discover more that way,” Camille says. “Throughout everything, we try to keep the mindset that we’re always learning. There’s so much out there to discover and learn.”
Looking ahead, there’s always room for growth. Penny Pairs continues to expand through more physical spaces and product lines. Moai expands in its own way, not through scale, but by deepening what it offers within its single space, where small finds and quiet moments reveal how much there is to discover. Both remain rooted in the same belief: that discovery, whether it’s finding the right piece of jewelry, stumbling upon a new cafe, or learning something new about your partner, adds meaning to life. “This feels like just the beginning,” Camille says.
This article was originally published in our March 2026 issue.
Photography by Kim Angela Santos of KLIQ, Inc.
