What might look like a local hangout, with chairs and couches, is really a small space holding big ideas in the fashion world. This small studio space is aimed at designing urban apparel and selling other small urban clothing lines to San Francisco residents looking for new takes on urban apparel. The name of this place? Invisible Stripes.

A San Francisco-based design team runs the store named after the label, and sells its designs alongside brands from the Bay Area to the United Kingdom, to provide customers with a new perspective on urban street wear.

Co-owners Tom Do and Chris Nguyen, the men behind the designs, started with individual clothing lines, but decided to go into business together in the fall of 2007 to promote each other’s label and provide their opinions on what urban living means to them through the use of fashion.

“Like in the military where you would receive ranks, on the streets, invisible stripes represent your street credibility, respect that you’ve earned from whatever your grind or hustle,” Do said. “The invisible stripes are stripes that rank a person, which someone metaphorically carries to acknowledge their struggle.”

The road to starting the label and store, however, is not as trendy as some of the clothes, and caused the owners to grapple with the struggles of building a budding fashion line.

“Tom and I built the store with our own two hands. We didn’t have any construction or carpentry background, no permits or nothing. We just kinda went at it,” Nguyen said. “We didn’t know what the hell we were doing with the design and layout of the store. We just tried to keep it clean.”

Now, having earned their stripes in the fashion business, the designers plan to release a 50-piece denim collection, each individually numbered, as well as a Spring 2009 collection, which will feature their full collection of men’s and women’s clothing. Invisible Stripes carries a variety of designer brands from all over the globe.

Eric Andres, an intern at Invisible Stripes and SF State student, has been working at the urban lifestyle store for more than a month and said his experiences with Do and Nguyen have provided him insight into the business and local community.

“Besides having assignments to complete, it’s a really chill place to work and the store brings in a lot of local people,” said Andres, a communications major.

Working in the store also allows him to get in touch with his creative side, Andres said, as interns are also given opportunities to create new designs for production.

Currently five, unpaid interns are working alongside Do and Nguyen. The owners offered the internships as a stepping stool for those who are interested in fashion, merchandising, business and constant production, Do said.

“We just want to be able to offer our services so that our interns can benefit from what we know and learn from it,” Do said. “Maybe one day they’ll be able to utilize the skills they learned here when they start their own line of business.”

Hopes for expansion are in the picture, Do said, but for now the full focus is on their existing store.

Customer Andrea Hernandez, an Arizona native who moved to the Bay Area two years ago, found out about Invisible Stripes via MySpace and said she liked the idea of the unique fashions produced by Invisible Stripes.

“Coming from Arizona, we don’t have places like this to shop at,” Hernandez said. “There aren’t many local, urban retailers so we all shop at the mall, which means everyone wears the same thing. When you buy something here, you know only a select handful of people will have what you have.”

Invisible Stripes is open daily from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. and is located at 1800 San Jose Ave., near the City College of San Francisco.