Karl Chester, Starline Customs, designs trainers for Sir Elton John

Back in 2022, Karl Chester, a sneaker artist, customised a pair of Ed Sheeran-themed trainers for a customer as a wedding present to his wife.

He decided to share a picture of his creation on Twitter and much to his surprise, Ed Sheeran retweeted the design with his 17 million followers at the time.

On the back of this, Karl, who owns Starline Customs, was then contacted by the chairman of Elton John’s company, Luke Lloyd-Davies.

Karl, 32, was asked if he was available to customise a pair of trainers for Elton John and his husband David Furnish.

“At first I was a bit suspicious and couldn’t quite believe it,” Karl told the Warrington Guardian.

“But after going onto his Instagram profile that he had messaged me from, I could see both Elton and David followed him and there were loads of pictures of them together so he was legit.”

Karl was tasked with creating a matching pair for the couple to celebrate Elton’s final tour.

He wanted to get to know the couple so the shoes could be 'super personalised and detailed', so he printed out photographs and 'basically had a little shrine' in his studio.

The overall process took a couple of months due to the level of detail that went into the shoes.

“Elton John is one of the most famous men on the planet, so it is safe to say I felt a bit of pressure,” Karl said.

Karl even added in a removeable polaroid picture that he painted on a piece of leather to add ‘a bit of theatrics’ to the shoes.

He said: “I was made up with how they looked and included a little handwritten note to both of them.”

After sending the shoes off, Karl received a message from Luke to say that Elton was ‘really made up’ with them.

“That made everything completely worth it,” said Karl.

You can find out more about Karl's business Starline Customs here.

And you can find his Instagram here.