One of the current trends in the deep neural network technology consists in allowing a man-machine interaction and providing an explanation of network design and learning principles. In this direction, an experience with fuzzy systems is of great support. We propose our insight that is based on the particular theory of fuzzy (F)-transforms. Besides a theoretical explanation, we develop a new architecture of a deep neural network where the F-transform convolution kernels are used in the first two layers. Based on a series of experiments, we demonstrate the suitability of the F-transform-based deep neural network in the domain of image processing with the focus on recognition. Moreover, we support our insight by revealing the similarity between the F-transform and first-layer kernels in the most used deep neural networks.