So what can we expect to see more of at Couture this year? Yellow gold dominates. There are a lot of great cuffs on display, from Armenta, Gurhan, Diana Heiman, Annie Fenterstock, Todd Reed, Sazingg, Fern Freeman, Konstantino, Jarretiere, and many more.

There are eleven categories in the Couture Awards, although a few don’t have many styles in competition. The most competitive categories are Gold and Haute Couture, which has some incredible pieces. The strength of the entries in the Newcomers category, open only to new exhibitors at Couture 2008, shows the strength of the show in continuing to attract interesting designers.

Who will win? Well, that’s for you to decide!

But every year at the AGTA press event that showcases all the entries our editors find a few pieces that we think really should have won. We think you would too. Now AGTA is offering all would-be jewelry design judges like us a chance to discover all the great jewelry in the competition that didn’t win a Spectrum Award. Images of all the pieces entered are available for viewing in the online Spectrum Awards Collection.

Some of our picks, pieces designed by Suz Andreasen, R. Bruce Henderson, David Clark, Klaus Kutter, and Sylva Yepremian are featured below. And believe me, there are plenty of other great designs we could have picked. Feel free to post links to your favorite pieces as well!

It’s time once again for the Spectrum Awards, the top annual design competition for colored gemstone and pearl jewelry sponsored by the American Gem Trade Association. All jewelry designers and lapidary artists from the United States and Canada are invited to enter finished colored gemstone and pearl jewelry produced after October 2006. The competition also includes a category for gemstone cutting, known as the Cutting Edge Awards. The best thing about the Spectrum Awards competition is that winners are often previously unknown designers. I’d say half the winners each year are retailers so the competition really celebrates all the great custom retail jewelers out there. If you have a beautiful piece of gemstone jewelry you’ve designed, with high-quality well-cut gemstones used in an innovative way, you really do have a shot. Are you psyched? You have four months to execute your colorful vision: the AGTA is accepting entries until September 25, 2007. Entry forms can be found online. Winning pieces get a lot of publicity: in fact, for the last ten years we’ve featured a winning piece on the cover of the February issue of Modern Jeweler. We generally run pictures of all the winners (because Modern Jeweler’s managing editor Matt Kramer loves the Spectrum Awards and can’t bear to leave anyone out.) The AGTA also shows off the winners at trade shows and a media event for magazine editors, fashion stylists, producers, and costume designers. So start designing! For inspiration, here are two 2007 winners, a brooch by Jennifer Rabe Morin of Santa Barbara, above, and a necklace by Robert Wander of Winc Creations of Honolulu, below.

One of the most interesting collections launched at the Baselworld show this year is the extravagant one-of-a-kind jewelry of Wallace Chan of Hong Kong. Chan has long been a gem engraver and his portraits carved inside gemstones are as distinctive as they are original. His new collection of jewelry uses cast and carved titanium to reproduce the natural world. Chan has managed to create large and amazingly light pieces in this difficult metal, depicting insects, fish, and other creatures in bejewelled earrings, brooches, rings, and art pieces of breathtaking scale and detail. The whole collection will officially launch at the September show in Hong Kong.