Fedorova’s childhood in post-Soviet Russia introduced her early on to the “spiritual aura” of branded commodities. Now a writer and curator based in London, she writes shrewdly about how we imbue objects with meaning and status. “Second Skin,” her first book, is in part an assertion that we all might learn something from fetishists, who exist in playful surrender to the things that they covet. A foot fetishist and leatherman she calls D, who is partial to skeletal feet with “large, strong nail beds and toes that look like talons,” emphasizes the existence of a physical quality that is immediately recognizable to the fetishist but remains otherwise indescribable. This quality is clearly sexual but distinct from beauty. “I look at some people’s feet,” D says, “and think, ‘They can save my life.’ ”