NEW YORK, Apr 22, 2004 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX/ -- Based on the 2003 success of Martha Stewart Signature Furniture with Bernhardt, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Inc. (MSO) and Bernhardt Furniture Company today announced a major expansion of the brand label at the International Home Furnishings Market in High Point, North Carolina. The two partners will be introducing 67 new SKUs to the existing Lily Pond collection and upholstered goods assortment of Martha Stewart Signature Furniture with Bernhardt, representing a 26% expansion of the Martha Stewart Signature furniture line. The introductions will be available to customers at furniture retailers nationwide in October 2004.

"Customers have been very receptive to Martha Stewart Signature's eclectic assortment of furnishings available through the Lily Pond(R), Skylands(TM), and Turkey Hill(TM) Collections," said Alex Bernhardt, Sr., Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Bernhardt Furniture. "Martha Stewart Signature Furniture with Bernhardt continues to offer fresh ideas with a twist on the traditional. The newest introductions to the Lily Pond collection further illustrate this fresh but timeless point of view, brought home by the brand's focus on proportion, scale, and color."

There are 36 case goods additions to Lily Pond, a collection inspired by Martha's shingle-style, light-filled coastal home on the eastern end of Long Island. One bedroom, one dining room, and four occasional groups offer customers an extensive range of design options for modern, casual living, from the great room to the kitchen to the bedroom. The expanded assortment includes new finishes, such as Antiqued Alder, and intricate design details including delicate marquetry, which are unique design elements new to the Martha Stewart Signature Furniture with Bernhardt line.

The 31 new upholstered goods, available in 30 fabric options ranging in style and formality, include five sofas and four chairs. Among the refreshing new designs are the Rexford Sofa, the line's first sectional, available in a stylish yet practical microsuede -- an ideal fabric option for a lively household-and the Hollis Armchair, which features a rattan frame and vibrant striped upholstery, for a casual, natural addition to any home. With the expanded upholstered goods assortment, Martha Stewart Signature(TM) Furniture with Bernhardt now offers 122 upholstered pieces, enabling consumers to find the appropriate seating options for their home, regardless of their space and design needs.

"The ongoing success and expansion of the Martha Stewart Signature programs underscore the continuing high approval marks and satisfaction among our consumers for our high-quality, stylish, and affordable products for which the brand stands. In fact, the vast majority of our consumers continue to say that Martha Stewart Signature Furniture with Bernhardt stands for products they can trust," said Sharon Patrick, President and CEO. "Martha Stewart Signature Furniture with Bernhardt is yet another solid example of MSO's continued evolution from expert personality to quality products to trusted brand labels."

"I'm enormously proud of our newest product designs and I congratulate the product design, development, and merchandising team directed by Gael Towey, SEVP and Creative Director, and Alex Bates, SVP and Executive Creative Director of Product Design, in collaboration with Elise Contarsy, EVP of Retail Merchandising, and Bernhardt President Lewis Norman and Vice President John Pullin. Together, they have created a wider assortment of products, offering our customers additional beautiful, practical, and affordable decorating possibilities that work for every room in the home," stated Martha Stewart, Founding Editorial Director. "The hallmarks of our Signature collections -- sensible proportions, creative use of color, distinctive finishes, and carefully designed details -- are present in these wonderful new pieces that continue to evolve our contemporary approach to classic and traditional furniture design for the modern homemaker."

Martha Stewart Signature Furniture with Bernhardt offers three collections -- Lily Pond, Skylands, and Turkey Hill -- and now includes 322 SKUs of furniture for every room in the house. These collections reflect MSO's trademark quality, as seen in the details and proportions of the furniture, affordability, home decorating style, and color palettes that consumers desire, coupled with the manufacturing and distribution strengths of Bernhardt Furniture. Each collection reflects a character of its own, with vibrant colors, unique hardware, a wide variety of finishes, and numerous useful and sensibly proportioned upholstered pieces. Customers can incorporate pieces from all three collections to create a personal style that is beautiful and unique.

The Martha Stewart Signature(TM) brand, which also includes paints, decorative fabrics, and flooring, is distinguished by fine-quality materials, distinctive textures, and beautiful colors, as well as by affordability and style. Designed to work together, these products provide customers with a total-room/total-home decorating solution.

Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Inc. is a leading provider of original how-to information that turns dreamers into doers, inspiring and engaging consumers with unique content and high-quality products for the home. MSO's creative experts develop content within eight core areas -- Home, Cooking and Entertaining, Gardening, Crafts, Holiday, Keeping, Weddings, and Baby and Kids -- that provide consumers with ideas and products to celebrate their homes and the domestic arts. MSO is organized into four business segments: Publishing, Television, Merchandising, and Internet/Direct Commerce.

The Bernhardt family has been crafting fine furniture since 1889. Located in western North Carolina, the company produces a broad line of custom-built upholstered furniture in both contemporary and classic traditional styles, as well as quality wood furniture for dining room, living room, and bedroom-all at an unmatched value in the marketplace.

SOURCE Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia

Elizabeth Estroff of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia,
+1-212-827-8281, or eestroff@marthastewart.com; or Heather Bloom of Bernhardt
Furniture, +1-828-759-6491, or heatherbloom@bernhardt.com; or Samantha Schabel
of Susan Magrino Agency, +1-212-957-3005, or sam@smapr.com, for Martha Stewart
Living Omnimedia

http://www.marthastewart.com