When I started designing clothes for hunters and outdoor enthusiasts, I didn’t want my brand to be just about gear — I wanted it to tell a story.
Every patch, every print, every stitch should mean something.
And the heart of it all is a stag — one particular stag — named FRITZ.
This is the story of how I met him, what he taught me, and why that old stag still walks with me, even now, as the face ofmy brand.
— JAMES
Fritz and Me
It was the kind of cold morning that makes your breath look like it’s got secrets to tell. You know — the forest still half-asleep, the frost clinging to the grass like it doesn’t want to let go. Out in the Luxembourg Forests, that’s my favorite time of year.
“Moien, James! Erëm fréi ënnerwee, hä?” (Hello James ! Out early again as usual, huh?) old René called from his farmhouse as I passed. He was leaning on his fence, coffee in hand, dog at his boots, same as always.
“Ma secher dat,” (Yes, of course) I said with a grin. “Een as ëmmer den Éischten, weess de?” (Someone's always first, you know.)
He chuckled. “Pass op, dee jäizegen Hirsch huet dech scho méi dacks ausgelaacht wéi ech.” (Watch out, the old deer has already laughed at you more than I have.)
He wasn’t wrong.
By then, Fritz had already become a sort of running joke among the locals. I’d been seeing him for years — glimpses, really — a big old stag with antlers like twisted roots, always just far enough away to keep his pride.
He wasn’t a ghost, exactly. Ghosts don’t stomp their hooves in the mud just to make you look. Fritz was more like… a gentleman who enjoys being late to his own story.
The first time I saw him was pure luck. I was maybe twenty, still learning to move quietly through the woods, still thinking I could outsmart nature with the right boots and enough coffee. I’d set up near a clearing above the Sûre River, just past Esch-sur-Sûre. The mist was thick enough to taste.
And then he stepped out.
He wasn’t the biggest stag I’d ever seen, but he had that look — the kind that makes you straighten up without knowing why. He turned his head, caught my scent, and for a long second we just looked at each other.
Then he flicked his ear, snorted like he was unimpressed, and trotted off.
That was it. Hook, line, and antler.
From then on, Fritz became part of my seasons. Every year, I’d spot him — sometimes with a few younger bucks trailing behind, sometimes alone, always outsmarting me.
There was the time I spent half a day following his tracks, only to realize he’d looped behind me and was probably watching me stumble around like a fool. There was the foggy morning I thought I’d lost him forever, only to catch his shape in the distance, standing under a beech tree, like some forest sentinel.
After a while, it stopped being about hunting. Don’t get me wrong — I’m a hunter through and through. But with Fritz, it became something else. It was… a kind of friendship. One-sided, sure, but real all the same.
He reminded me why I love this — the quiet, the patience, the feeling that the world still has mysteries that don’t need solving.
One winter, I didn’t see him at all. The forest was silent that year — fewer deer, harsher frost, long nights. I told myself maybe he’d moved on, maybe nature had taken him the way it takes everything eventually... or a neighbor couldn't keep his finger off the trigger and chased him.
Then, early spring, I was checking a game camera by a fallen oak — and there he was. Still alive. Still strutting like he owned the place. A little thinner, a little slower, but unmistakably him.
I swear I laughed out loud, right there in the mud. “Du bass nach ëmmer hei, Alen !” (Still here old Boy!)
That was the moment I realized: Fritz wasn’t just a deer I’d been chasing. He was a symbol of everything I wanted to stand for — patience, persistence, and respect for nature’s rhythm.
Years later, when I started sketching ideas for my clothing line, every design kept circling back to that image — the proud old stag in the Luxembourg mist, calm and stubborn as ever.
I didn’t want a logo that shouted. I wanted one that listened.
So I drew him — not as a trophy, but as an emblem. Strong, weathered, a bit cheeky, like he’s still daring you to keep up.
And that’s how Fritz found his way onto every tag, every print, every jacket.
Sometimes customers ask me if Fritz was real. I always smile and say, “Oh, he’s real, alright. Real enough to make me late for work more than once.”
Even now, when I walk the trails near Esch or down toward the river, I half-expect to see him again — maybe older, maybe not at all. But I like to think he’s still out there somewhere, watching me build something honest out of all those years of quiet mornings.
The truth is, Fritz never belonged to me. He belonged to the forest — to the fog and the ferns, the way all wild things do.
But for a while, he let me walk his world.
And that’s worth more than any trophy.
“Merci, ale Frënd,” I sometimes whisper when the woods go still. “Du hues mir méi bäibruecht wéi all Buch.”
(Thanks, old friend. You taught me more than any book ever could.)
And that’s the story of Fritz — the old stag who refused to be hunted, and somehow ended up leading the way anyway.