Q&A | Mariah Kunkel

Photos via Two Inch Cuffs and Mariah Kunkel.

Within about a minute of finding Mariah Kunkel's lifestyle and fashion blog, Quite Continental, I knew I had to contact her (demand friendship). She's an honest contemporary of Katharine Hepburn, who is unsurprisingly one of Mariah's personal style icons. Everything I know about her is deliberate and smart, spunky and independent. And believe me, I'm not the only one that feels this way, last week while eating her lunch on the steps of the library on 5th Avenue, Mariah was photographed by the one and only Bill Cunningham.

If not in New York, I would live in... a beachy community of Southern California, like Topanga Canyon, the Venice Canals, Abbot Kinney, Santa Barbara, my dream would probably be Rustic Canyon.

My dream holiday would be to...tour the South Pacific and ride seaplanes, outriggers, sailboats and horses while exploring rain forests and coastal towns. I'd wear my hair wild and eat my weight in mangoes.

My current obsessions are...eating the aforementioned mangoes, as well as heirloom tomatoes, avocados, fresh mint, tacos, and sweet corn; listening to The Civil Wars and Ryan Bingham (when I'm not listening to Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone, Depeche Mode, The Smiths, Janelle Monae); wearing my field jacket and nursing something of a chambray addiction; and stalking a few pairs of Dieppa Restrepo loafers.

I channel my childhood self when I...create collages, watch Auntie Mame (the original with Rosalind Russell), listen to southern rock, eat my mother's sugar cookies, ride horses.

The fictional characters I most relate to are...Weetzie Bat from the Francesca Lia Block novels and Denise from The Cosby Show.

If I had to be outdoors all day I would... want to wake up early on the warm shores of an ocean. Make strong coffee over an open fire. Walk through open fields with a happy dog or two. Find a horse, saddle her up with just a blanket, and ride over gentle hills, ford streams and let her stretch her legs in a full gallop as she liked. Return to the beach in the late afternoon to laze about playing gin rummy in the setting sun. Eat fish tacos and huge strawberries and peaches. Drink pineapple juice laced with mint and horchata and red sangria. Get a little drunk and dance to bossa nova, Les Nubians, Nina Simone, Argentine tango music. Smile until my face hurt. Fall asleep with sand on my toes.

My favorite quality in a man is... passion.

My favorite quality in a woman is... the same, passion.

I'm terrified of...stasis. And bedbugs.

My dream car is a...first generation ('66-'77) Ford Bronco, the earlier the better and without a top. I'd also like McQueen's Jaguar XKSS, while we're dreaming.

My cocktail of choice is...something gin-based: aviation, French 75, or gimlet.

My celebrity crushes are...Paul Newman and Steve McQueen.

My friends and I like to...ride our bicycles around the city, partake in the 3+ hour brunch, drink openly on rooftops and furtively in movie theaters, wander museums, run Central Park and along the Hudson, go to drag queen bingo.

If I could go back in time for one decade it would be...can I cheat and say 1945 - 1955?

As a teenager I was totally into...Sassy magazine (the Jane Pratt years), soccer, 20-eye Doc Martens, Chanel Vamp, horses, 90210, fighting with my mother (we've since made up), drama class, vanilla Cokes, St. Christopher medals, James Dean movies, The Cure, and drive-in movies.

I tend to splurge on...too many magazines, plane tickets and liquor.

To most, it's because of the way I dress, but I believe my insatiable curiosity and love of adventure...is what makes me have Tomboy Style.